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Willard E. Hawkins 


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HELPS FOR STUDENT-WRITERS 









Helps For 
Student-W riters 

BY 

WILLARD E. HAWKINS ' 

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FIRST SERIES 


The Student- Writer Press 
Denver, Colorado 

1917 




Copyright, 1917, 

BY WILLARD C. HAWKINS 




THE WORLD PRINTING COMPAN 
1837 CHAMPA 8T., DENVER 



Cl. A 4 5 3 


882 


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FOREWORD 


r I PUT in concrete form suggestions that may help 
those who are struggling along the path of author- 
ship is the central purpose of this volume. With this 
purpose is allied that of avoiding familiar text-book plati- 
tudes. Whatever may be said of the individual papers, 
they are at least products of original thinking — not com- 
pilations of what various authorities have said. In each, 
the aim has been to present an answer to some funda- 
mental problem that confronts the literary worker. These 
problems are of two kinds — technical and temperamental. 
The aid I have attempted to offer has not been confined 
exclusively to either. When published in magazine form 
through The Student-Writer, the articles brought sufficient 
response to indicate that they met the requirements of 
many to whom they were addressed. 

Abstract discussions have been avoided. Artistic 
standards, it is hoped, have not been ignored ; but the par- 
ticular audience to which the suggestions are addressed is 
composed of those who are trying to write for publication 
— beginners as well as professionals. Hence the many 
concrete illustrations and the practical note that runs 
through all the papers. 

Those who do not in all cases agree with my conclu- 
sions should remember that the methods advised and illus- 


8 


Foreword 


trated are not held to be the only methods of writing 
craftsmanship. They are, however, methods that have 
been found dependable in practice. Some students have 
argued that I place too much dependence upon rules. On 
the contrary, I place so little dependence on any rule that 
I insist upon knowing the principle back of it before I 
consider it worth employing even as an occasional guide. 
Others have felt that undue emphasis has been laid upon 
plot. With those who insist that the best short-story has 
no plot such as is usually defined I am inclined to agree. 
But this type of tale is rarely acceptable to publishers of 
today. Even while lamenting the demand that seems to 
exist for plots rather than for stories, I am constrained to 
advise writers who are looking toward publication that 
plot is the most essential thing in salable fiction. The 
genius who can discard this advice needs no urging of 
mine to do so. Rules never hampered a writer strong 
enough to rise without them. 

Finally, I shall be satisfied if assured that the little 
book, though it cannot teach students all that they need 
to know about writing, has at least proved helpful to them 
in their work. 

Grateful acknowledgement must be made to the many 
who have urged the publication of this material in book 
form, and particularly to Mr. John H. Clifford, whose 
scholarship and long experience in the revision of standard 
book editions have been invaluable to me in insuring the 
correct typography of the book, in preparing these articles 
for magazine publication, and again in revising them for 
this final edition. 


W. E. H. 


CONTENTS 


Page 

Foreword 7 

Plot and Climax Essentials ..... 13 

Can We Afford to be Original? . . . .21 

The Attitude of Mind ...... 25 

Have a Standard of Style ... . 29 

An Aid to Standardization ..... 30 

“Snowballing” a Plot . 33 

The Stone Wall of Talent ..... 43 

Why Strive for Unity . . . ... 51 

The Precipice of Suspense ..... 57 

Fixing the Viewpoint . . . ... 61 

Word Lenses ....... 69 

The Place of Technique . . ... .75 

Creative Characterization ..... 77 

The Law of Rhythmic Development ... .87 

Photoplays or Fiction? 93 

Naming the Characters .... 95 

Hackneyed Plots 97 

“He Said” and “She Said” 101 

The Boiler and the Whistle ..... 105 

The Purpose of Fiction . . . . . .111 









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PLOT AND CLIMAX 
ESSENTIALS 


TN A PLOT SENSE, it may be said that the whole of a short- 
story is the climax. The most concise and practical definition 
of plot that I have found is : A problem and its solution. If a tale 
can not be reduced to this formula, it is a simple narrative, rather 
than a short-story. The phrase constitutes not only a definition, but 
a recipe for the planning of fiction. One writer puts the matter 
thus : “To write stories that sell isn’t much of a trick. It appears 
to be a matter of stating a problem, then solving it in a way that is 
logical but not perfectly obvious.” 

From a purely mechanical viewpoint, this is indeed the whole 
of plot building. However, it is not altogether a simple matter to 
make the solution logical without making it too obvious. Problems 
are easy to devise — they confront us at every turn — but it is not so 
easy to solve them effectively. 

Suppose, for instance, that you allow your boy hero to have 
his foot captured in a rock crevice which holds him prisoner inside 
a cave, while the tide slowly rises over his head. There you have 
a problem: How is the boy’s life to be saved? But the answer 
presents a good many difficulties. You might allow him to work 
his foot loose — but that would be obvious. You might let the tide 
fail to reach its usual height — but that would not be logical. A 
writer for The American Boy solved this problem by causing the 
hero to put the bulb of his camera in his mouth, while he held the 
open end of the rubber tube above the surface of the water. By 


14 


Helps For Student-Writers 


means of this improvised diving apparatus, he was able to sustain 
life until rescue came. The result was a rattling good boy’s story, 
because the solution of the problem was logical, yet not obvious. 
The average reader would not have anticipated it. 

The relative importance of the two elements of plot would be 
better indicated if we phrased our definition: Plot is the solution 
of a problem. For the solution is the all-important thing. When 
an editor returns your story with the comment, “A well-written 
tale, but it lacks a novel twist,” he means that you have solved the 
problem in a familiar way. The reader knows the answer before 
it is given. The best possible plot material is a new device for 
solving a problem. Have your climax — the solution — to start with, 
then devise a problem to fit it. 

It is probable that in writing the story of the boy and the water 
trap the author followed the plan of working back from the 
climax. Perhaps he had noted the similarity between a camera 
tube and a diving apparatus. This would lead to the invention 
of an emergency in which the tube could be used for just 
such a purpose. The introductory part would be reached the last 
thing before actual development began — the boy’s possession of the 
camera must be accounted for by giving him an interest in photogra- 
phy, and his pursuit of that art must bring him into the position 
of danger from which his presence of mind finally rescues him. 

Yet, though the plot must have been worked out backward from 
solution to problem, it comes to the reader problem first. The 
result is a logically worked-out story, with an unexpected twist at 
the climax. 

As a means of stimulating a writer’s invention, the advice is 
sometimes given: “Let your characters fall into difficulties, then 
set your wits to extricate them.” This method sometimes works 
very well ; but more often the result is commonplace. Many some- 
how ineffective stories that have come to my desk were obviously 
developed by this method. The author has put the characters into 
a situation which at once captures the reader’s interest; but the 
climax, or solution, is a bare working out of details which reveal 


Plot and Climax Essentials 15 

only moderate powers of invention. It is usually forced, obvious, 
and mediocre. 

In testing a plot idea, consider chiefly the possibilities for a 
striking climax. Almost every germinal idea may be used either 
for the opening situation — the problem — or for the solution. By all 
means, however, let it serve as your climax. Let me illustrate: 

Suppose we conceive the idea of a vengeful flock of hawks, 
which bring about the death of many aviators by attacking them in 
the air and causing them to lose control of their machines. 

The idea contains possibilities either for a problem or for the 
solution of a problem. For convenience, suppose we lay the scene 
in the future, when a night patrol of the heavens has become a 
natural extension of police service. Let us consider first the plan 
of using the idea as the basis of our problem. 

The birds are the recognized enemies of the sky-police. They 
make nightly attacks on the air-patrolmen, clawing and pecking 
at their eyes, and flapping their faces, until the aviators become 
frantic and fall to earth. Many fatalities result. The problem of 
ridding the air of this scourge is serious. It must be granted that 
this makes a situation that may be so developed as to grip the 
reader. 

But, to my mind, when we reach the point of the climax no 
very effective solution of the problem presents itself. Various 
methods could be devised for exterminating the birds; but this is 
not at all a surprising development. A short-story so worked out 
will be almost certain to prove somewhat disappointing. We shall 
have wasted all our powder in the preliminary attack upon the 
reader’s interest. There is nothing left that is quite effective enough, 
in comparison with the opening situation, to grip him. The state- 
ment of the problem contains our supreme effort of invention. 

Now that we have tried this mode of construction and found 
it wanting, suppose we transpose the factors. Let the birds and 
their part in the affair remain out of sight until the climax. The 
problem will be to ascertain what it is that causes the seemingly 
inexplicable deaths of the sky-patrolmen. 


16 


Helps For Student-Writers 


I feel certain that this was the logical construction for 
“A Nemesis of the Air,” because it enabled me to prepare the 
reader’s mind carefully for the strongest revelation of my story — 
the nature of the mysterious cause which sent the aviators hurtling 
to their death. Incidentally, a magazine editor thought so too. The 
only solution that suggests itself in the early development is the 
supernatural one contained in the curse of an old inventor who 
was disappointed at not receiving the contract for municipal aero- 
planes. The inventor had died, insisting that his vengeance would 
pursue the sky-police and bring them one by one to their deaths. 
The concluding revelation is that, on dying, he released a flock of 
hawks which had been trained to attack furiously any person wear- 
ing the uniform of the sky-police. Thus, the old man is responsi- 
ble for the scourge, though not exactly in the supernatural way that 
his words would have indicated. 

Another method possible in the development of this story would 
have been that of taking the old man’s viewpoint, setting him the 
problem of “getting even” for his fancied wrongs, and solving this 
problem by the introduction of trained birds. This, how’ever, would 
have made it difficult to secure surprise. The solution could not 
have been confined to the concluding paragraphs, where it would 
leave the strongest impression on the reader. 

Similar inversion can be applied to almost any plot. The germ 
of the story is probably the feature which makes it worth the telling, 
and the question of where to concentrate its effectiveness is one 
of great importance. The germinal idea of the boy’s story used 
for illustration was that of the improvised diving apparatus. There- 
fore it was best introduced at the climax. 

Perhaps you have received a manuscript back with the editorial 
comment: “A good idea, but you have failed to make the most 
of it.” Examine the story and see whether the criticism was not 
due to the fact that you employed your basic idea for the problem, 
rather than for the solution. Try an inversion of the plot elements 
to bring your strong point out at the conclusion. In a great many 
cases, this is just what is needed to make the most of the story’s 


Plot and Climax Essentials 


17 


possibilities. The “big idea,” whatever it may be, is the feature 
that belongs in the solution of your problem. If you have devised 
a novel method of escape from a burglar-proof bank vault, by all 
means let that be the culmination of your action. If you have 
thought of a unique relation of characters toward each other, the 
chances are very much in favor of a story which makes this relation 
the climax, rather than the opening situation. 

The student can not undertake a more efficient exercise for 
developing his plot sense than that of studying, from this viewpoint, 
published stories in all sorts of magazines. Dissect the narrative 
until you have the problem and the solution clearly in mind, then 
try to follow the train of reasoning which caused the writer to 
develop his story as he did, rather than otherwise. Note how’, in 
most cases, the crux of the story is contained in the climax, and also 
how this climax idea might have been employed as the problem, 
rather than its solution, had not the author possessed the judgment 
to discern that, so employed, it would have failed to leave a strong 
final impression. 


gURPRISE, we have seen, is one of the essential elements of plot 
effectiveness. It is more often than any other the factor that 
puts a story “across.” A tale may contain what we have designated 
as most essential — a solution that is logical but not obvious — and 
still it may lack that sudden, irresistible culmination of events at 
the climax which makes for “punch.” 

Suppose, for instance, that the solution of your difficulty con- 
sists in causing the hero to take a course in college. It is possible 
to devise a situation of which this would be the natural and yet not 
altogether obvious solution. To originate a rough instance, he 
might find himself in love with a country girl whose dying father 
exacted from her a promise not to marry an uneducated man. This 
promise, we will say, was for the purpose of eliminating the hero 
from the race; but he overcomes his handicap by the solution 
mentioned. 

Now such a climax, with its necessarily slow development, 


18 


Helps For Student-Writers 


would be obviously ineffective. By the time the reader has fol- 
lowed the boy through college, the effectiveness of the idea will 
have evaporated. The action is not sharp and quick as it should 
be for dramatic power, but leisurely and long drawn out. 

Many themes are apparently unfitted for short-story develop- 
ment because of this drawback. The short-story culmination should 
be abrupt — sharply defined. A cloudburst is more dramatic than a 
drizzle. You experience a more definite shock from the sight of an 
aviator plunging to his death than from observing a victim of 
wasting illness, who is approaching death just as certainly, though 
more slowly. Suddenness, thus, is an important element of dramatic 
value. In many cases it may be said to give a story “punch.” To 
have your hero go through college will not, of itself, make a vivid 
climax, no matter how well it solves the problem involved ; because 
the action lacks this necessary quality. 

But it is sometimes possible to employ such a solution by devis- 
ing other means for the surprise. Suppose we have the hero in the 
case under consideration come gradually to recognize that in solving 
his problem he has grown beyond the simple country girl he remem- 
bers, and no longer loves her. Thus another problem would be 
introduced in the solving of the first one. This second problem 
could be dramatically solved when they meet again and he discovers 
that the girl has more than kept pace with him. 

Without an effective surprise of some kind, it may be said, 
few pieces of fiction find a market. The more striking the surprise, 
the more likely a sale — though, naturally, the quality of the market 
is dependent on literary value and other considerations. Sometimes, 
surprise may be given by letting the climax contain an unexpected 
revelation concerning the motive which caused the hero to solve 
the problem. 

In a previous article, students were warned against too great 
a departure from the obvious. At first glance, the stress upon 
surprise may seem inconsistent with this. As a matter of fact, the 
two suggestions are entirely reconcilable. So far as possible, let 
the suddenness of your climax provide the surprise element. The 


Plot and Climax Essentials 


19 


solution should come at the moment when the action seems farthest 
from a satisfactory outcome. When our college graduate comes 
home to break his engagement with the simple country girl is the 
time for him to make the discovery of her dazzling development 
during his absence. 

Now, as to preparation for the climax. This is a delicate phase 
of story construction — or rather narration, since it is not until the 
story is being actually written that the difficulties become apparent. 
How often is the author in despair over a good idea that flattens 
because, in order to convey its meaning to the reader, the con- 
clusion must be cumbered with explanations, description, and side- 
lights on character. 

The less of these features, character drawing included, you 
have in your climax, the better rounded will it be. The place for 
your drawing of characters is in the preliminary narration. By the 
time you reach the climax we should know the story people so Well 
that it is unnecessary to tell us how they did or said a thing. We 
should have such a clear picture of the scene, by this time, that no 
description is needed. We should have the key to all the action in 
advance, so that no explanations are necessary. 

In the introduction, and in fact all through the narration pre- 
ceding the climax, give us characterization and atmosphere in such 
doses as the action will permit. Remember that you are building 
for the climax. You impress upon us in the first part that the 
heroine has red-brown hair and speaks in a soft Southern drawl, 
in order that these details need not be mentioned at the last — thus, a 
simple statement of what she did will be sufficient to make us picture 
her as doing it. When you quote what she says at the conclusion, 
w'e naturally supply the tone in which the words were uttered. 

From the foregoing discussion, a few simple rules for obtaining 
strength and balance in story structure may be deduced : 

1. Plot consists of a problem and its solution. 

2. The solution of the problem is the climax ; and the climax, 
in a plot sense, is the story. 

3. The three essentials of an effective climax are: It must be 


20 


Helps For Student-Writers 


logical ; it must not be too obvious ; it must have a sudden, surpris- 
ing culmination, for the sake of dramatic effect. 

4. The germinal idea of the story, usually, should form the 
basis of the solution, or climax, rather than the basis of the problem. 

5. You are not ready for the climax until the characters have 
been brought to life in the reader’s mind, so that bare, concise state- 
ments are all the reader needs in order to visualize the big scene. 


CAN WE AFFORD TO BE 
ORIGINAL? 


T HE editorial cry for originality is unceasing. The student- 
writer, eager to please, does his best to satisfy the demand. 
His stories fairly bristle with novelty. But though he sub- 
mits his offerings persistently, the long-anticipated acceptance, 
when it does come, is for what he deemed a hackneyed little tale, 
hardly worth the postage required to send it out. 

He is naturally disconcerted by this but still retains his faith 
in the fetish of novelty. He explains the failure of his strikingly 
original stories and the acceptance of the simple little lack-novelty 
by the philosophic reflection that accidents will happen. 

Further experience, however, convinces him that this was not 
an accident. The more novel his conceptions, the more likely they 
are to come back, while the occasional acceptances are for well- 
written old stories, containing perhaps a degree of novelty in the 
matter of setting, or a slightly new plot twist. 

One of my correspondents whose work frequently appears in 
good magazines calls this the “dull-thud” type of story. In com- 
menting on one of his own tales which appeared in The Saturday 
Evening Post, he observes that he has come to the conclusion that 
one of the strongest elements of salability — if not the strongest — is 
obviousness. “I believe it is true,” he adds, “that editors want 
the reward-of-virtue stuff applied thickly and in words of one 
syllable. I find the same trouble with every story. If I twist the 
plot a little I can’t sell it. If I retwist it to the obvious, it sells on 
the next trip.” 


21 


22 


Helps For Student-Writers 


If such conclusions were exceptional — but they are not. The 
same bewildered comment has come from dozens of writers who are 
beginning to break into print. The first impulse of the hopeful 
author on making this discovery is to assert that the editors either 
don’t know what they want, or don’t know originality when they 
see it. 

This attitude is, of course, unjust to the editors. Their state- 
ments of what they want and the evidence of what they accept are 
more reconcilable than may appear on the surface. In fact, they 
are entirely reconcilable. 

For one thing, the attempt to secure originality of plot gener- 
ally results in excess of subtlety. Some of the most original writers 
I know succeed in marketing very little of their work. Much of 
it is exquisite artistically — but a subtle intellect is required to appre- 
ciate the theme and its development. Few magazines that are 
successful enough commercially to pay fair rates can afford to 
ignore entirely the everyday reader. General Reader is intelligent, 
but he cannot be said to revel in subtleties. What he likes is an 
interesting story, well told. If the writer has visualized his char- 
acters clearly and placed them in interesting situations, friend 
Reader does not care whether or not the basic plot is old. Neither 
does the editor. In fact, if the plot is of the familiar “reward-of- 
virtue” type, it may make a stronger impression than otherwise, 
because readers know that it is true — true to life and human nature. 
The story based on an entirely original theme may leave them 
doubting. It deals with motives and reactions that are probably 
out of their experience. 

Tenuity and subtlety of plot are too frequently the chief char- 
acteristics of novel stories. The editor distrusts these as the mer- 
chant distrusts a new, unadvertised brand of cigars. A ready sale 
exists for the old brands, and naturally he does not wish to throw 
them out of his show case, the magazine, to make room for untried 
goods to which the public must be educated. 

However — mark the distinction — the shopkeeper, as well as the 
editor, knows the importance of novelty as a means of stimulating 


Can We Afford to be Original ? 


23 


business. Thus, he may augment the appeal of his old reliable 
brands by including with every sale a profit-sharing coupon, or by 
an attractive window’ display featuring a standard product. The 
merchant is likely to be distrustful of a perfume put out by a new 
company. But suppose the manufacturer of a standard brand of 
toilet soap should put this same perfume on the market under his 
trade mark. The merchant is pretty certain to stock up with it. 
Why? He knows that the combination of something new, in con- 
nection with the old reliable firm name, is very likely to capture 
the public. 

Magazine catering is subject to the commercial laws that gov- 
ern any other business. The editor knows that certain lines of 
fiction goods — certain old plots, for example — can be relied upon. 
He makes them the foundation of his business. But he also know's 
that new ideas in connection with the selling of these plots are 
vitally necessary. Hence the cry for novelty. 

“Give us new ideas for selling Latherine soap/’ cries the manu- 
facturer. “Give us new ideas for selling the old reliable plots/’ 
echoes the editor. 

We may respond by devising a new and attractive box for the 
marketing of the old soap, or by devising a new setting for the old 
plot — if it has been confined to the tropics, shift the scene to the 
north pole. We may respond by inventing a new and fragrant 
scent for the toilet soap, or by giving the old plot a new signifi- 
cance. We may respond to the manufacturer’s demand by employ- 
ing a standard article as a premium to introduce an entirely new 
product, and we may satisfy the editor by using an old plot to 
carry across a more subtle subplot of undoubted originality. 

Perhaps it is now clear that when editors say, “Be original,” 
they do not mean, “Devise far-fetched novelties for readers whose 
concern is with the commonplaces of everyday life.” They do 
mean : “Devise a good strong plot, with plenty of significance ; be 
sure that your materials are fresh, not shopworn, and wrap them 
up in fresh, up-to-date language, instead of using old characters, 
old incidents, and old figures of speech.” 


24 


Helps For Student-Writers 


The writer who knows his business can “put across” any time- 
worn plot by letting it germinate in his mind until the possibilities 
become new to him. It is not the old plot that editors reject, so 
much as the old way of presenting it. You do not object to fruit 
salad for dinner on the ground that you have eaten fruit salad 
before; neither do you find uninteresting the “reward-of-virtue” 
plot because you have read it elsewhere. But you would feel 
aggrieved if you recognized in the salad the “left-overs” from a 
former meal. So, in writing, the materials must be fresh, even 
if the combination is in familiar proportions. The old plots will 
please us only when the scenes and characters are new. 

Variety in our literary diet is always welcome — an occasional 
innovation in the manner in which our fiction potatoes are cooked. 
For good results writers and cooks alike need fresh materials — 
this is more essential than that the materials be of a new kind, to 
which the consumer’s appetite must be educated. 

Certain plots, it is true, have so cloyed the palates of readers 
that they have become unwelcome in editorial offices. So also cer- 
tain sweets served at every meal cause us to sicken and want no 
more of them. As a result, we have the ban, or the near-ban, on 
the triangle story, the cub-reporter story, and others. Yet even 
these can be employed in moderation. 

Be moderate then in seeking originality. The editorial demand 
is for something new', in spite of occasional appearances, and the 
writer who studies the situation will soon learn to steer a safe 
course between the rock of stale triteness on one hand and the 
whirlpool of too extreme novelty on the other. 


THE ATTITUDE OF MIND 


XVTHENEVER I am asked by students which is the most impor- 
* * tant thing in the writer’s craft — plot, or style, or vivid char- 
acterization — I am tempted to reply: “None of these. The most 
important thing is The Attitude of Mind.” 

Of all factors in the way of a writer’s success the heaviest is 
discouragement. No one is more subject to this cramping influence 
than the literary worker. To begin with, he or she is peculiarly 
temperamental. And few are the spirits resolute enough to stand 
up, for an extended period, to a succession of unvaried rejections — 
the inevitable lot of the beginning writer. Some students feel 
aggrieved because work which seems good to them is turned down 
by the editors, while those who have the discernment to see that 
their work is lacking in important qualities are in despair over their 
inability to reach the standard they desire to attain. 

In cases where the discouragement is based upon inability to 
sell stories, it is easy to diagnose the difficulty. The writer who 
makes acceptances his whole purpose — who considers his time 
wasted unless it brings financial return — is rarely the one who 
achieves success. His joy is not sufficiently in the work itself. 

For this writer, and for the more advanced soul whose despair 
is that his work never comes up to his own exacting standard, the 
same attitude of mind can profitably be cultivated. Realize this: It 
is positively as foolish for the writer to strain for power of narra- 
tion as it would be for the third-grade schoolboy to fret for the 
time when he shall graduate and reach man’s stature. In due course 

25 


26 


Helps For Student-Writers 


of natural growth, the boy will inevitably reach his full stature; 
but no straining will appreciably hasten that time. 

Physical growth, as we know', is dependent upon a proper 
admixture of food and exercise. If we are forced to lie motionless 
for an extended period, our unused muscles will atrophy. The boy 
can best aid his development into manly strength and stature by 
using his muscles in normal activities, and by taking such nourish- 
ment as his system demands. So it is that, to grow as a writer, 
one must have regular mental exercise of the proper kind. One 
must write and thereby develop the power to write. This is the 
universal law of growth. It is a normal, not a forced development, 
and the results are assured. 

Knowing, then, that as long as he is exercising his faculties, 
such exercises will eventually bring him full power, why should 
any writer become discouraged? You would laugh at the ten-year- 
old boy who asserted gloomily: “I know I shall never be a man.” 
So with the writer. Never make the foolish and illogical remark: 
“I know I shall never succeed at this rate.” On the contrary, you 
can not help succeeding in good time, in the line along which you 
direct your growth. 

The important thing is to cease anticipating the time of 
“arrival.” As literary craftsmen, let us devote all our energies to 
making the best of present opportunities for exercise. Progress 
will be hampered, rather than advanced, by straining for recogni- 
tion. Write as you would play a game. If your opponent bests 
you at tennis, do you feel that the time was wasted? Not if you 
are a true sportsman. Your interest was in the doing, not in the 
result. One who has acquired the proper poise studies his rejec- 
tions without disappointment and tries to profit by his failures, be- 
cause that is the way to develop skill. Serene in the consciousness 
that results will show in good time, he goes on writing and aiding 
his faculties in their normal development. 

I like to think of a literary career as a long road winding 
pleasantly through groves and flower-dotted fields. It is an uphill 
road, to be sure, but eventually it reaches the crest of a height 


The Attitude of Mind 


21 


where stand the gates of a splendid city — the City of Success. Now, 
there are two ways of traveling this road. Many of us see in it 
only a means of reaching the goal. So we struggle on toward the 
shining gates, and wear ourselves out in the frenzied endeavor 
to arrive, only to discover, after a long period of toil, that the dis- 
tance was deceptive — the city seems as far away as ever. No 
wonder that many give up the struggle and fall by the wayside 
in discouragement. 

That is the wrong way to undertake any journey. To set one’s 
eyes on the goal, ignoring the nearer beauties, is to make the road 
uninteresting and interminable. 

Suppose, on the contrary, that we look upon traveling the road 
as a pleasure jaunt. Our concern is not with arrival. We have 
undertaken the journey for its own sake — for the interesting experi- 
ences we may have along the way — for the pleasure of passing 
through shady groves and pausing to rest in daisy fields. With 
the true philosopher, each bit of writing is a delightful event — it 
means gathering flowers of experience by the wayside, and feeling 
another accession of the mental health and vigor that comes from 
moderate, unstraining effort. 

And mark: Those of us who have followed the road thus 
pleasantly and in leisurely fashion, knowing that, without fail, 
steady progress will eventually bring us up at the destination, 
are by no means left behind in the pilgrimage. We pass many on 
the road who have struggled so hard to reach the goal that they 
have fallen, discouraged and exhausted. When some of the frantic 
strugglers do arrive, they are so weary and nerve-racked that they 
cannot enjoy what they have attained; or else they are in a condi- 
tion to lose their balance as a result of the sudden realization of 
their desires. 

Those of us who have followed the path with the right mental 
attitude arrive at the City of Success in good time. We are invigor- 
ated by the climb and in a fit condition temperately to enjoy what 
the city has to offer the traveler. We do not lose our heads and 
plunge into excess with the first taste of triumph, because we have 


28 


Helps For Student-Writers 


not lost much sleep over the prospect of arrival, and — well, to be 
frank, we are rather critical of the glaring city. We almost wish 
ourselves again on the shaded road, gathering flowers of experi- 
ence — writing stories that always came back, though they meant, 
each one of them, a bit of our very life substance. 


HAVE A STANDARD 
OF STYLE 


T T GOES without saying that manuscripts submitted by student- 
-*• writers should be correct in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, 
and all mechanical details. Often, however, it is difficult to deter- 
mine what is correct. Comparatively few standard publications, it 
may be noted, have the same rules of typography. One editor is 
an exponent of the simplified spelling, and the pages of his maga- 
zine bristle with “tho” and “thru” and other comparatively new 
forms. One magazine would write the phrase, “The Pennsylvania 
Railroad enters New York State,” while another would publish it, 
“The Pennsylvania railroad enters New York state.” One would 
say, “November 3rd,” another “November 3d,” another “Novem- 
ber 3.” 

There are dozens of such points of difference, which frequently 
cause the writer confusion. It is impossible to satisfy everyone, 
when frequently the highest authorities differ. Nor is it necessary. 
If you submit a manuscript that does not come entirely within the 
office style, in case of acceptance the changes will be made in the 
editorial room. However, it is advisable to have a definite standard, 
and it should be a conservative, rather than an ultramodern stand- 
ard which will find comparatively few sympathetic editors. Thus, 
in prose work, use “through,” and “though”; put the apostrophe 
in “don’t” and “can’t,” even though you will find magazines that 
spell “thru,” “dont,” etc. 

The rules quoted below' are from the United Typothetae of 

29 


30 


Helps For Student-Writers 


America style book, used by a majority of printing offices in the 
United States as an aid to standardization. They touch chiefly 
points which difference of opinion, or lack of opinion, have made 
it necessary to standardize. The standard is a good one for writers, 
because it is consistent with that which will be followed by the 
majority of compositors in setting a piece of work, unless they are 
otherwise instructed. A manuscript prepared in accordance with 
these rules will be in good taste, even when submitted to a magazine 
that has a different style. 

The “up” style is that which favors capitalizing in such cases 
as the “Southern Railroad,” “Missouri River,” etc., which in the 
“down” style would be written, “Missouri river,” “Southern rail- 
road,” etc. 


An Aid to Standardization. 

CAPITALIZATION. 

The office style is down except when special instructions to the 
contrary are given. Wayne county, Clyde river. New York Central 
railroad, state, president, etc. But capitalize the full corporate title 
when it is given: as, The Chicago & Northwestern Railroad Company. 

Capitalize words designating definite regions: as, the Orient, the 
boundless West, the Gulf Coast. Lower-case eastern New York, north- 
ern Maine, etc. 

Capitalize names of important events and things: as, the Reforma- 
tion, the Revolution, the Middle Ages, the Union, the Government. 

Capitalize the names of political parties: as, Republican, Demo- 
cratic, etc. 

Capitalize titles of nobility when referring to specific persons: as, 
the Prince of Wales. 

Capitalize titles preceding names: as. President Roosevelt, Doctor 
Jones; but not the president of the Erie railroad. 

Capitalize specific titles: as, Thank you, Professor; the Colonel 
will soon be here. 

Capitalize Church, when used as opposed to the world. 

Capitalize the principal words and the last word in titles of books, 
plays, lectures, pictures, and newspaper and magazine articles. 

Capitalize fanciful names given to states, cities, etc.: as, the Key- 
stone state; the Crescent city. 

, Capitalize First ward, Fifth st,reet, Third regiment, etc. 

In compound words capitalize each word, if it would be capitalized 
when standing alone. 

Put a. m. and p. m. in lower-case. 

Use capitals for genus and lower-case for species, as in Staphy- 
lococcus pyogenes, Bacillus coli communis, etc. 

COMPOUNDS. 

Fractions, when both numerator and denominator are less than 
twenty-one, should be compounded: as, one-half, three-tenths, etc. 
But when the word is used in speaking of a specific thing, omit the 
hyphen: as, One half of my page is leaded brevier and the other half 
solid six-point. When the numerator or denominator exceeds twenty, 
omit the hyphen: as, twenty thirty-seconds; fifteen sixty-fourths. 

Use hyphens in all cases such as the following: Two-inch board, 
three-year-old colt, well-known maji, 500-volt current, etc. Two words 


An Aid to Standardization 


81 


used as a noun should either appear solid or with the hyphen, and it 
is not always easy to decide which form is the better: as, blood- 
vessels, germ-cells, sick-room, dining-car, finger-nail, composing-room, 
press-room. In a general way it may be said that when one or both 
words are of one syllable only, the tendency is to join them without 
the hyphen, while if they are of two or more syllables the hyphen is 
often used; but the above examples show that the usage is by no 
means uniform. 

Make today, tomorrow, etc., one word. 

DATES. 

In dates omit d, th, and st. when the year is given: as, October 
9, 1906. Use them when the year is omitted: as, the work must be 
shipped October 20th. 

Make it 2d and 3d, not 2nd and 3rd. 

In giving a series of two or more years express them thus: 1906-07, 
not 1906-7. 


POSSESSIVE CASE. 

Singular nouns ending in s take an apostrophe and another s to 
show the possessive case. King James’s reign; Jones’s scales; Bass’s 
ale; Chambers’s encyclopedia. 

SPELL OUT. 

Spell out the names of the months. 

Spell out ages: as, twelve years. 

Use figures in statistics: as, Of 152 operations, 76 died and 76 re- 
covered. 

In general, numbers containing less than three figures are to be 
spelled out, though when they occur in groups of three or more, use 
figures. 

Spell out indefinite amounts. 

Numbers containing fractions or decimals should be put in figures, 
as also should numbers denoting per cent. 

Time of day should be put in figures, using a period between 
hours and minutes and a colon between minutes and seconds: as, 2.30 
p. m.; 2:10 class. Periods of time, ages, and the like, must be spelled 
out: as, twenty-four hours, ten hours, etc.; except that when they 
occur in groups of three or more, use figures. 

Spell out county, street, avenue. 

QUOTATIONS. 

Periods and commas following the last word of a quotation always 
precede the quotation marks. The other points precede them when 
the whole sentence is quoted, and follow them when the last word 
or clause is quoted. 


ABBREVIATIONS. 

Abbreviate military and civic titles when preceding a full name: 
as. Dr. John Smith; Gen. U. S. Grant. Spell them out when they do 
not precede a full name: as, Doctor Smith; Colonel Bryan. 

Abbreviate Company when character & is used: as, A. J. Johnson 
& Co. When short & is not used, spell out Company: as, Lyons 
Printing Company. 

Abbreviate names of states and territories following towns, except 
Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, and Utah. 

Etc., not &c. 

SPELLING. 

Omit the final s in afterward, toward, upward, downward, etc. 

Omit the final te in toilet. 

Use er in diameter, fiber, meter, millimeter, centimeter. 

Center, theater, etc., are the correct forms. 

Use technique, not technic. 

Use disk, not disc. 

Spell dulness, fulness, instalment, etc. 


32 


Helps For Student-Writers 


PUNCTUATION. 

The conjunction does not take the placfe of the comma in a series 
of words. “John, James, and Thomas are here;’’ “black, red, blue, 
and yellow were the colors selected;’’ are the correct forms. 

Do not use a period after roman numerals, except when they mark 
paragraphs or other divisions. 

Words and phrases inclosed in marks of parenthesis are to be 
punctuated according to the sense, and not by a set rule. Sometimes 
punctuation-marks are used before the first curve and inside the last 
one; sometimes but one mark is needed, in which case it will follow 
the second curve; sometimes no marks at all are required. 

When a line closes with a colon do not use a dash also. 

The Typothetae style book favors the use of the comma and dash 
together under certain conditions. Other authorities, however, which 
we indorse, say unequivocally: 

A comma and a dash should not be used together. 


“SNOWBALLING” A PLOT 

T3 Y the term “snowballing” a plot, I do not mean throwing things 
■*^at it. No doubt, many plots need such drastic treatment, but 
in this case the phrase has been coined to express the process of 
rolling up ideas as a huge snowball is rolled, by turning the nucleus 
over and over, with an added accumulation at each revolution. 

The experienced writer does not attempt the Herculean task 
of writing a story out of hand. There is an easy, simple w'ay of 
going about plot building, as opposed to harder and more harrow- 
ing methods. Forcing their plots into premature crystallization is 
one of the mistakes of ambitious writers. Instead of rolling up a 
natural, symmetrical, well-packed ball of ideas, they punch their 
thoughts together into a lumpy, awkward, insecure mass. 

Practically all successful authors have adopted the plan of 
turning their ideas over and over in order to perfect them. The 
principle lies behind many idiosyncrasies of genius. Charles Hoyt 
developed a play by repeatedly talking over the plot with long- 
suffering acquaintances. Each time, the outline would be slightly 
elaborated and strengthened. When it was, so to speak, rolled and 
packed to his satisfaction, he was ready to commence the actual 
composition. 

Balzac’s method was to write out his ideas in preliminary form 
and then have them set up in type. When the proof sheet came 
from the printer, he would cut down, revise, and greatly elaborate 
— until there was no more room for insertions. This copy went 
again to the printer for correction and a new proof sheet was re- 
turned. Gradually, the nucleus would be rolled up into its final 

33 


34 


Helps For Student-Writers 


form. No doubt, the author of the Comedie Humaine would have 
simplified his method, had he lived in this day of the typewriter. 

Any “turning-over” process is likely to prove valuable. But 
the student-writer is often in the dark about beginnings. How is 
he to capture the germinal idea — the nucleus? 

There are many ways. For the majority of writers, the best 
method is to begin with the theme ; then to devise characters and 
incidents to prove the truth of the conception. I am convinced that 
the wrong way to go about fiction building is to look for actual 
incidents upon which to hang stories. The advice, “study the news- 
papers for plot suggestions,” is responsible for two-thirds of the 
commonplace, mediocre stories with which the editors are bom- 
barded. Read the newspapers — yes ; be alert to what is going on ; 
in every possible way, keep your ears attuned to life and human 
nature. But employ the insight thus gained for making your purely 
imaginary incidents convincing. 

The only way in which, as a rule, an actual incident may 
be effectively employed in plot manufacture is to dissect the incident 
and extract the principle that it illustrates, then employ that as the 
theme of a purely imaginary story. 

Let us, by way of illustration, set about to reproduce the mental 
process of “snowballing” a plot. As I write these lines, I have no 
notion what theme I will select for development, but I have a definite 
idea of the way to go about finding it. A calm, confident, unhurried 
attitude of mind is of great importance. The idea, once found, must 
be allowed to grow naturally and of its own accord, into a sym- 
metrical story. Our part is to keep turning it over and over, so 
that an accumulation of ideas may have a chance to adhere to the 
basic conception. 

The first essential, of course, is the idea. And, remembering 
that actual incidents are likely to make commonplace material, in- 
stead of culling over the yellow newspapers, or searching through 
our notebooks, we will look within ourselves for some thought of 
sufficient importance to be worthy of impressing on readers through 
the medium of fiction. 


“Snowballing” a Plot 


35 


This basic idea, or theme, may be almost any abstract prin- 
ciple, ideal, or bit of philosophy. “When Fortune flatters, she does 
it to betray,” wrote Publius Syrus. This suggests the story of an 
unworthy man whose nature is betrayed by the use he makes of 
his money. “Mother love” is an abstract idea capable of illustra- 
tion in many striking ways. “Intuition is more trustworthy than 
reason” — if you think so, prove your point by endowing a certain 
character with intuition, another with reason, and turning the con- 
ception over until it evolves into a plot. 

A hundred such themes present themselves on the spur of the 
moment; they contain possibilities, but not all of them appeal to us 
as being our particular story — the one we wish to develop. We are 
exacting. 

Let’s see — suppose we develop a story on the subject of He- 
redity.” Come to think of it, though, that has been used a good 
many times in fiction, so the chances are that we would be wasting 
our effort upon it. Try again. For a good, live subject, how does 
the word “Preparedness” sound? Not so bad, as we consider it. 
Rightly handled, that word may serve as the nucleus for our snow- 
ball. Here it is, then, a tiny, compact ball of possibilities: 

Preparedness. 

Now' for the initial turn over. The first thing we notice is that 
this word has two poles. We shall have to take a definite stand — 
our story must prove something. Are we for, or against ? 

It happens that we are neutral; but just to get started, we 
decide to make our story prove the “anti” side. The first roll of 
our snowball, thus, evolves it into this form : 

The best protection is non-preparedness. 

Second turn. Now begin to arise questions. What char- 
acters shall we select? In what setting shall we place the story? 
Shall we involve two European countries, or perhaps the United 
States and some other nation? Not if we are wise. That will take 
the subject entirely out of our reach — and anyway, this situation is 
what suggested our theme. The farther we get away from it, the 
more likely we shall be to maintain a clear perspective. 


36 


Helps For Student-Writers 


Short story unity of impression depends largely upon limiting 
the cast to the fewest possible characters. Our situation must be 
one involving not more than two or three persons. And the reader’s 
interest must be centered, in particular, upon a certain one of these 
characters. 

Let us take stock of our idea and its present accumulation : 

The theme that the best policy is unpreparedness is to he illustrated 
by a small cast centering around one character. This character is to 
pursue the policy of unpreparedness and to win out by it in a situation 
that ordinarily would be met with armed resistance. 

Third turn. This does not as yet look much like a story; still, 
it is quite an elaboration upon our original snowball. At least, we 
know what general type of situations and characters are needed. 

Now, it will be a good plan to consider several tentative set- 
tings and situations: 

Suppose we place the scene in “big S” Society. A number of 
debutantes may be arming themselves with feminine weapons of 
conquest, the object being preparedness for the attack when a titled 
foreigner comes wife hunting. Surely there is a story in the capture 
of this lion by a simple little maiden who has been too artless 
(or artful, as the case may be) to prepare for conquest. 

But that does not altogether suit us; some better use of the 
material may suggest itself. Suppose we transpose the gender and 
shift the scene from Society to frontier. Surely, if unpreparedness 
is capable of standing the test, it will have good opportunity of 
doing so in a typical mining camp, where every marT carries a gun 
and is prepared to use it at an instant’s notice. Among all these 
hair-trigger natures, a “Prince of Peace” who refuses to decorate 
his person with hardware, may be a unique personality. We might 
have him confronted by armed bandits while carrying a fortune in 
gold down an unfrequented trail. It seems not impossible to devise 
a working out of this situation in which his unarmed position saves 
his own life and enables him to retain the gold. 

Or, we might transpose the scene to the University. Picture 
the “grind” who is studying night and day in preparation for after 
life, while his frivolous roommate, who does not believe in pre- 


“Snowballing” a Plot 


37 


paredness, has a good time. According to the fable of the Grass- 
hopper and the Ants, the grind is due to come out on top; but it 
will not be difficult for us to write a story in which the roommate, 
who devoted less time to preparation, stumbles into the fat, respon- 
sible position, while the grind becomes one of his clerks. 

But that is old ; the probability is that George Ade has at some 
time made better use than we can of the material. 

We might lay the scene on the border of Mexico, letting an 
unprotected American save himself and his family by means of a 
striking policy of disarmament. Or we might — 

But, after all, the mining camp suggestion contains good pos- 
sibilities for a vital illustration of our theme. We may tentatively 
decide upon it and proceed with our rolling process. This is how 
we now stand : 

That unpreparedness is the best protection is to be proven in a gold- 
camp setting, by a hero who refuses to adopt preparedness. While bur- 
dened with treasure, he is confronted by bandits. The situation is such 
that, if he had been armed, he would have been killed. As a direct result 
of being unarmed, he escapes both with his life and his treasure. 

Fourth turn. That phrase, “As a direct result of being 
unarmed,” is important. The story must satisfy this condition. If 
there is no clear connecting link between our hero’s escape and his 
lack of arms, our anti-preparedness demonstration will fall flat. 

We know’ now that our hero is going to get the best of the 
highwaymen through being unarmed ; but the details are slow in 
materializing. However, the preliminary situation is not difficult 
to imagine. It has, so to speak, adhered to our nucleus without any 
particular effort on our part. We begin to visualize the situation. 
There must be a central character, the advocate of nonprepared- 
ness. And his presence seems to call for a contrast with some more 
warlike character who is violently in favor of “gun toting.” It 
is easy to imagine these two as partners, riding along with the 
treasure between them — arguing the question of its safe transport. 
The hero advocates leaving all weapons at home. His partner has 
insisted upon stocking up with artillery. They arrive at a danger- 
ous pass, where their theories are put to the test. Opposed by a 


38 


Helps For Student- Writers 


superior force, their fight seems certain to be a losing one. So we 
have an opportunity to compare the tactics in actual practice. 

This has been quite a turn over. Let us pause and warm our 
hands, while proudly surveying the present state of our snowball. 

Steve Anti, and his partner, Scotty Pro, are wending their way to 
town, heavily laden with gold dust from their rich placer in the hills. 
Buck McGinnis and his band of outlaws are known to be at large in the 
neighborhood. Buck’s reputation is a fright! He openly flaunts a trophy 
consisting of a huge diamond plucked from the necktie of a capitalist 
tenderfoot. Steve Anti laments the display of hardware he has been per- 
suaded to hang around his belt, protesting that it simply invites attack. 
Scotty has never heard such foolishness! How are they going to protect 
their gold in case some one else wants it! The argument waxes warm, 
but remains unsettled, when they approach Dead Man’s Gulch, where 
the outlaws are known to lie in wait. Unable to agree as to a mode of 
procedure, the two decide to part company. The gold is divided and 
distributed inconspicuously about the person of each man. Then Steve 
passes his rifle, his revolver, and his ammunition, over to Scotty, whose 
warlike nature fairly revels in being thus doubly armed. They draw lots. 
The winner is to take the lead, the other to follow fifteen minutes behind 
him. Neither, in any circumstance, is to jeopardize his share of the gold 
by coming to the other’s assistance in case of trouble. 

Our snowball is getting cumbersome now. Already w'e have 
the scene, the characters, and a stage all set for the climax. The 
nature of that climax is clearly in mind, but we are hazy about de- 
tails. The best plan, since our characters seem to have come to life 
so readily, and to be displaying such marked individuality, is to 
follow them. Maybe the author will learn something from his crea- 
tions. Already w'e have commenced to have a lot of respect for 
Steve Anti. He seems such an original thinker — and look at the 
risk he is taking, just for the sake of an ideal. We suspect that he 
will prove thrillingly audacious in a pinch. Let’s see, he is tall and 
sinewy, and he looks like a Christy hero, except that the razor 
slipped a couple of times as he was hacking loose a month’s growth 
of whiskers before starting to town. He has the eyes of a dreamer 
combined with the firm chin of action; and something about his 
mouth suggests a keen sense of humor. As for Scotty — w'ell, though 
he wasn’t thought of in time for the leading role, still we can’t help 
a sneaking sympathy for the man. He’s certainly full of ginger. 
One look at his bristling red hair— he took no chances with the 


“Snowballing” a Plot 


39 


razor — is enough to tell us he’s spoiling for a fight. Knowing our 
climax in advance, of course we realize that Scotty hasn’t a chance 
at the show-down, and it is a trifle difficult not to feel sorry for him. 
If Scotty knew’ this, he would scornfully tell us to save our pity 
for the outlaws. 

Time’s up. Now for another look at our snowball. 

The toss-up results in giving Steve Anti the first chance to find out 
the truth regarding a Hereafter. Stripped of all defensive weapons, he 
rides forth; even his coat has been abandoned, in order that his absolute 
unpreparedness may be apparent at a glance. A solidly filled belt of 
gold is the only object surrounding his waist. He rides through the pass 
and is not. in any way molested. His psychology begins to look reason- 
able. Why should bandits attack a man who obviously has nothing about 
him worth carrying a weapon to defend? So he 

But this fraction of a turn makes us realize that the climax of 
our story is going to be without dramatic action. We are proving 
our point in altogether too peaceful and uneventful a way. It will 
never do to disappoint the reader, who has been led to think there 
will be a real encounter with bandits. We now must contrive to 
bring them on the scene. Amended, our outline therefore reads : 

Steve rides through the pass but a short distance, when he is sud- 
denly confronted by half a dozen armed bandits. They are strangers to 
him, but he recognizes the dreaded Buck McGinnis by the famous dia- 
mond flashing from his shirt front. “Stop and give an account of your- 
self!” is the terrible command. Steve obeys, though he regrets that 
those who make the request belong to the dark ages of preparedness. 
“Seen anything of a sorrel horse?” inquires Steve nonchalantly, rolling 
a cigarette. 

There being no show of resistance, the highwaymen are not quite 
sure it is worth their while to parley with this stranger. Steve dis- 
mounts. “Where you going?” demands McGinnis. “Thought I’d take a 
look down this gully,” responds Steve, as he starts off. The bandits 
glance at one another. “Come back,” yells McGinnis. “Your sorrel ain’t 
down there. Jump on your nag and hurry — get to blazes out o’ here!” 
So Steve, apparently against his will, is not only passed up by the gang 
as unworthy their prowess, but even assisted on his way. They don’t 
want him around. 

A short distance down the road, he draws rein, listening tensely. 
There it comes! A sudden rattle of shots. He knows that Scotty is put- 
ting up a good fight, but the odds against him make the result a fore- 
gone conclusion. Steve, forgetful of the compact, spurs his horse to the 
aid of his unfortunate partner. But the shots suddenly cease— it is all 
over. Sadly, Steve resumes his townward journey. How foolish to 
make an arsenal of oneself, thus inviting destruction! 

Arrived at his destination, he enters a thirst emporium and breaks 


40 


Helps For Student-Writers 


the news. It is sad news, for Scotty was well liked by these rough miners 
and frontiersmen. “Poor Scotty,” murmurs many a voice, as our story 
comes to a close. “He was a mighty fine little cuss — but too all-fired 
‘prepared’ for a scrap to get along well in this world.” 

So there we have the final roll of the snowball. It can be given 
much further polishing, and the actual narration is still to be ac- 
complished ; but our nucleus has truly developed into a definitely 
rounded story. The point has been clearly illustrated — But 
whoa, Bill ! 

Our snowball has taken another complete flop, before we could 
prevent. Who walks into the thirst emporium, and into the story 
again, but the late lamented Scotty! We stare with eyes as wide as 
any frontiersman present, including Steve — but if that isn’t Scotty, 
staggering in the door under two rifles and a wagon load of belts 
and ammunition, it certainly is his earth-bound spirit. That he isn’t 
an apparition quickly becomes apparent. 

“Gimme whiskey and make it straight!” he roars, in approved west- 
ern style. “I’m dying o’ thirst.” He glares around balefully, until his 
eyes light on the open-mouthed Steve. “Why the Sam Hill didn’t you 
come back and give me a lift with all this junk?” he demands. “Whadda 
you think I am — a pack mule?” 

So saying, he disburdens himself of half a dozen well-filled money 
belts, enough revolvers to supply the whole camp, and last, but not least, 
Buck McGinnis’s much-flaunted diamond. “Run out, some o’ you scum,” 
he barks, setting down the emptied glass, “and see if the batch o’ hosses 
I corralled on the way down is tied fast to the hitching bar. I had too 
big a thirst to make sure.” 

It is a shame ; Scotty ought not to have done it ; but he w’as a 
trouble-maker from the first. Remember how he broke into the cast 
when he wasn’t even considered in the original line-up, and how he 
made us have a sort of sneaking liking for him in spite of his taking 
the wrong side of the argument? Now, at the last, he comes burst- 
ing in to take away all the hero’s laurels. He’s a rank usurper. 

But it is to be feared we’ll have to leave him in, because the 
one unpardonable sin in plot making is to let your story come out 
exactly as it seems destined to. Prove your point, yes; but also 
watch your opportunity to introduce some twist at the conclusion 
which gives the whole subject an altered complexion. 

Such, in brief, is a good working illustration of “snowballing” a 


41 


“Snowballing” a Plot 

plot. Far from being difficult, it is as easy as one desires to make 
it— and intensely interesting. Let a day or so elapse for each turn- 
ing over if desired. Then, in the evening, write down just as much 
or as little as has accumulated around the idea since the last time 
it was reduced to paper. We couldn’t have jumped at once from 
the nucleus idea to the final story, “A Matter of Preparedness.” So 
we put down what ive knew of the story, then turned it over until 
something more came to mind, r-nd kept up the process until a stage 
was reached when the idea came to life and we were startled to 
find that our abstract thought had grown into a full-fledged story 
outline, complete even to the twist in the conclusion. 

The chief objection that may be urged against this illustra- 
tion is that it evolves possible loss of artistic unity. The conten- 
tion, if true, does not alter the effectiveness of the plot-making 
recipe, which the not too temperamental writer will find exceed- 
ingly dependable. Modified to suit the individual needs of the 
writer, it may prove a developer of inspiration. 

But as to the story outline here “snowballed” into shape: 
What becomes of the artistic unity when we give it the twist? 
The story does not prove the theme with which we began, nor 
does it prove the opposite. In fact, the purpose of the illustration 
was not so much to prove the original theme as to reach a desti- 
nation. The original theme served its purpose in providing a 
starting point. Whatever value the illustration possesses is due to 
the fact that in writing it I set down the reasoning as it came to 
me, starting with an open mind and desirous only to evolve a 
story — to show a plot in process of creation. Toward the last 
came the suggestion : “There’s a chance for surprise in letting 
Scotty unexpectedly win out.” Presto! the original theme was 
abandoned. It had served its purpose by furnishing the nucleus 
for a story. The suggested twist made it possible to illustrate a 
theme that is more universally true, more significant, than the 
original conception. It may be expressed: “Any strong policy 
vigorously carried through will be successful — it all depends on 
the individual.” 


42 


Helps For Student-Writers 


The arguments for and against stories with twisty conclu- 
sions, it seems to me, simmer down to this: We find cheap twists 
and strong, significant twists in fiction, just as we see good poetry 
and doggerel, good and bad art of every description. Certainly 
the twist or surprise ending is a forceful aid in the marketing of 
fiction. 


THE STONE WALL 
OF TALENT 


HP HE most puzzling queries that reach the literary confessional 
are from writers who have attained a degree of success and 
find it impossible to overcome the limitations that prevent them 
from rising higher. A quotation illustrative of the point is here 


given : 

Is it strange, or isn't it, that I should know so well what I want to do 
and yet be so utterly unable even to approximate it? It seems so to me. 
To write stories that sell isn’t much of a trick. But to write a real story — 
well, such a story as Rupert Hughes’s “Don’t You Care’’ — is something 
entirely different. That’s what I want to do, the only branch of literature 
that I really care anything about, and I can’t even make a start in the 
right direction. And I feel the stories, too. I can picture them in my 
mind, even tell them quite acceptably to a sympathetic listener; but when 
I try to put them on paper I flounder about helplessly for a time, then 
give up and write one of the mechanical yarns that I know how to handle. 
Probably the thing I thought was a call to write was some other noise. 
Heaven knows I have tried; but there is a barrier that I have never been 
able to break down. 


Here is another, which, like the first, is from a writer whose 
work is in regular demand by leading fiction magazines : 

I have been writing six years now; still, today, I am in a position no 
more secure than when I first began writing. That is, when I send a 
story on its way to a magazine which he bought dozens of my efforts, 
I am no more sure of its selling than I was six years ago. I know a short- 
story plot, and know it pretty well. My strongest point, I have been told 
by editors who are in a position to know, is characterization. My tech- 
nique is almost perfect — far more so than that of nine-tenths of the big 
writers who appear every week in the big magazines. Still, I totter un- 
certainly all the time. What’s the matter? 

My stories teem with atmosphere; and, moreover, they have plots. 
Still they come back from the big magazines with the remark: “Fails to 
appeal.” 

This appeal business is the kernel of the whole matter. Appeal is a 
subtle something which cannot be laid off with a ruler. And, if you'll 

48 


44 


Helps For Student-Writers 

pardon m© for seeming to advise, that’s what you must look for in a story 
from a writer of my experience more than anything else. I can attend to 
the plot fairly well. Also the characterization, local color, etc. But to 
any one who can show me wherein my stories fail to “appeal” I shall be 
everlastingly grateful. 

And in contrast with writers who have worked hard and are 
willing to pay the price for that subtle something, yet find them- 
selves confronted by a seemingly impassable barrier, we see others 
who unaccountably leaped into leading magazines with their first 
stories, or forged to the front within a few short months. 

This leads to a reopening of the old inquiry into the difference 
between talent and genius; for it maybe admitted that a writer who 
can regularly turn out salable fiction is talented, while one who 
soars above him is equipped with something more— something that 
may be called genius. 

A clever writer can take the elements of real life as they have 
come under his observation and weave a good story out of them. 
The technique will be faultless, the characters true to life, the inci- 
dents probable, the theme significant, the denouement effective — to 
repeat, it is a good story. 

Nevertheless, this good story lacks something — a something 
which drives the creator nearly frantic at times because he can 
not define or instil the missing ingredient. If it were supplied, 
the tale would be a work approaching genius — but with this defici- 
ency it remains merely a “good story.” 

The missing factor is breadth of vision. No writer can put 
into his stories more of life that he sees, and this author happens 
to be so constructed as to see no more than other men may see. 
Like the dwellers in the Happy Valley which Doctor Johnson 
created for “Rasselas,” he is hemmed in by an impenetrable circle 
of limiting cliffs. His feet are confined to the earth, and, though 
he may be more observant and shrewder than his audience, he can 
see only that side of a wall which he happens to be facing; his 
horizon is no wider than that of the average mind. 

His pictures of life are unsurpassed until along comes another 
man with equal powers of observation, equal facility for descrip- 


Tke Stone Walt of Talent 


45 


tion — and the added advantage of a flying machine. The wings of 
this new' observer enable him to soar with ease over the wall of 
ordinary limitations. He is not confined to the observation of what 
lies on one side of a wall ; he does not need to speculate on what 
lies outside of the valley, for he is in a position to know. 

This fortunate writer puts such charm and richness into his 
pictures of life that they immediately thrill his readers. His com- 
ments upon men and events open up a new world to the ordinary 
vision. Matters that must be as sealed mysteries to the rest of 
humanity are clear as day to this soaring spirit. Not because he is 
more clever at inventing explanations, but because he sees more. 

Nor should this faculty be confused with imagination. The 
ordinary observer may have vivid powers of imagination, in the 
sense that he can invent characters and incidents that are unusual 
and yet true to life. Our friend with the flying machine may have 
no imagination whatever. He does not need it, for he perceives and 
knows. When he tells us a thing, he speaks as one having authority. 

His perspective is better. He sees into the future with a 
sureness that baffles one who can not comprehend the wider vision 
which is the source of his information. The outcome of a battle, 
for instance, he may predict with certainty. The man on the ground 
knows only one factor of the situation — the army with which he 
happens to be connected. The opposing general may have a much 
larger force than he estimates, and there may be a deep trench — as 
there was when Napoleon ordered the disastrous charge which cost 
him the battle of Waterloo — that will play havoc with the ordinary 
observer’s plans. The flying scout’s elevation enables him to know 
all factors, the comparative size of the forces opposed to each other, 
and the physical obstacles between them. Hence he may predict in 
advance the outcome of the battle — he may go further and suggest 
a definite plan for determining the result. 

It seems hardly necessary to explain how this applies to the 
writer. Evidently genius is a matter of that insight which comes 
with superior powers of vision. The man who has developed the 
power of soaring above his kind and bringing down the results of 


46 


Helps For Student-Writers 


his observations may find expression as a prophet or seer; or he 
may be an artist, a power in the financial world, a wonderful musi- 
cian — a writer. As a writer, he will see over the wall of outward 
appearances, penetrating to the soul of things; his treatment of 
character and incident will be fuller and richer than that of the 
equally discerning man on the ground. 

In actual practice, this works out somewhat as follows: The 
talented writer takes certain characters, fitting to each definite 
attributes of human nature. Having thus defined his creatures, he 
puts them in a situation and allows them to work out their destiny. 
His work is cleverly done and it convinces. The reader feels: 
“Yes, that is a logical development of the situation. A man of that 
type would do just the thing this hero does ; he would act in that 
way under certain conditions, and in the opposite way when a new 
factor is added to the situation. It is all consistent with human 
nature as we know it.” 

As we know it ! Ah, there’s the rub. The author has told his 
story in terms with which everybody is familiar. It is clever and 
convincing — but not enlightening. It is the work of a man whose 
feet are on the ground. When he looks at a stone wall, he sees 
nothing but the bare exterior. 

The same story, if illumined by the touch of genius, will deal 
with motives and character reactions that are beyond the ordinary 
insight. The story will be consistent, not only with human nature 
as we know it, but as the gods know it. Though we of ordinary 
intellect are unable to comprehend to the full these deeper pictures, 
w'e may feel the richness and power involved. A story of the 
merely clever type is based altogether on things about human nature 
that we already know' — that we all have the same “hands, organs, 
dimensions, senses, affections, passions,” that if you prick us we 
bleed, if you tickle us we laugh, if you poison us we die, and if you 
wrong us we shall revenge — while a story told by one of deeper 
insight will prove to us things about this same human nature that 
we did not know — new things, that at the same time are con- 
vincingly true. We can read such a story over and over, each time 


The Stone Wall of Talent 


47 


grasping a little more of the fundamentals it teaches. It is this 
richness, translated into the reader’s sense of repletion with the 
mental feast laid before him, that constitutes appeal. 

The writer who possesses the necessary insight — almost a 
clairvoyant insight — into realities illumines any subject he under- 
takes to develop; he can not help it. To him, there is nothing 
remarkable in treating an old subject from a new and fascinating 
angle. He saw it from that angle, and has merely put down his 
impressions. It is, in fact, a mystery to him how others can be 
more limited in vision — that “having eyes, they see not.” To him, 
for instance, such an obstacle as an encircling stone wall of out- 
ward character is merely a sort of boundary line. Looking down 
inside, he sees not only more sides of the wall than can be viewed 
by the nonsoaring observer, but even the life-teeming interior — the 
beauty and significance of the character as a whole. No wonder 
we say of such a writer: “He has the faculty of making common- 
place people and subjects interesting. 

How’ absurd it would be to speak of Balzac, or Shakespeare, 
or Zola, or Thackeray, or Tolstoy, or Dickens, and their fellow 
giants as “clever,” “original,” “talented”! Their cleverness and 
originality were not superior to the normal — perhaps inferior. Their 
technique was often a hodgepodge. They were seers . What they 
saw in life frequently was put down roughly, but it was more than 
the ordinary writer or reader can see for himself, and so it has 
lived. We read their works because they lift us from the ground 
and show us life as they saw it from their supervantage point. 

So, of course, any writer who rises above the rank and file in 
our day does so because he possesses in some degree the higher 
insight — a searching, clairvoyant, illuminating faculty — that makes 
his stories appealing. The author has caught a glimpse of some 
truth beyond the ordinary ken, and, perhaps only vaguely and in a 
fragmentary manner, has incorporated this insight into the type of 
story in which he specializes. Ring W. Lardner, for instance, 
caught the knack of laying bare the peculiar quirks and mental 
attitude of an illiterate and seemingly commonplace type of char- 


48 


Helps For Student-Writers 


acter. He looked within, instead of at the exterior, and the result 
is that hundreds of thousands enjoy his typical “You know me Al” 
yarns. Pelham G. Wodehouse, whose rapid coming to the front 
has aroused comment in the magazine world, succeeded in putting 
something indefinably new into old, familiar problems. The novelty 
consists, perhaps, of no more than taking a light, whimsical view 
of his subjects, instead of the ordinary serious view — but his stories 
have a degree of depth and appeal. Writers of the popular stamp 
owe much to their cleverness and technique, but it is the touch of 
higher insight that accounts for their rise above equally clever fellow 
craftsmen. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 

Beyond thus pointing out the difference between those whose 
work merely interests or entertains and those who have that subtle 
quality, appeal, one can not advance very far. There are few relia- 
ble recipes for attaining seership. But this, at least, can be asserted : 
What one man has developed, others have latent or partly awakened 
within them. Any writer who can appreciate a masterpiece and 
see that his own work lacks some of its elements has it in him to 
develop at least the wings of minor seership. 

One method of encouraging this development is to read the 
works of the masters, not for their technique, but for their insight. 
In such reading, the consciousness is temporarily raised and the 
vision extended. Occasionally the reader may put a suggestion of 
the higher vision thus gained into his own work. 

The best recipe of all is: Try, and continue trying, to express 
those stories that you feel. One drawback in case of the writer 
who has attained a degree of success through his cleverness is that 
his attempts to follow another line of development are likely to 
prove absurdly weak and abortive. The writer who has thus made 
an effort to express his higher vision is appalled at his own 
crudity — appalled as a novice would not be. He reasons that evi- 
dently such types of fiction are hopelessly out of his line — so goes 
back to the old reliable brand which he can handle with confidence. 
If he had been content to pass through a period of awkward flap- 
ping, he might have developed power beyond his dreams. 


The Stone Wall of Talent 


49 


The writer who has not yet found himself, even to the extent 
of grasping the knack of cleverly manufacturing effective tales, 
should bear in mind that technique, imagination, and ingenuity can 
take him only so far. They are limited attributes. Unless he 
wishes to find himself, after a certain period, facing an impenetrable 
stone wall, let him keep in mind always the purpose of developing 
a deeper insight than the ordinary into character, humanity, and 
destiny. Study of the masters and constant endeavor to see through 
appearances and outward forms — these are necessary parts of the 
training for authorship. 














WHY STRIVE FOR 
UNITY 


TNITY is an artificial quality, yet justly indispensable to the 
artist. Many a piece of literature fails because its strength is 
diffused. This is likely to be true of the story built around an inci- 
dent from real life, because actual events lack the unity that is 
demanded of fiction. 

Fiction is organized life. It is organized for a direct attack 
on the mind of the reader. A strong story ow’es much of its appeal 
to the fact that extraneous matters are eliminated, and developments 
held in leash until the climax moment, then allowed to take the 
reader by assault. The author who tells his story without regard 
for unity may be likened to a general who sends a ifew men at a 
time against the enemy. Each little assault is easily repelled. It 
makes no impression on the opposing force, and by the time the 
general has exhausted his material he has nothing to show for it. 

The skilful author-general holds back his forces until he can 
take the reader by surprise. Suddenly he releases his whole army 
in one grand charge, which sweeps everything before it. 

Think of your story as contained in the climax. Save every- 
thing for the final massed attack on the reader’s defenses. 

Frequent causes of diffused interest are: 

First, the title. Sometimes a title will contain such a bald 
statement of what the story is about that the reader loses interest 
before he begins. Example: “Jimmy Captures a Burglar.” Why 
should we read further, when the title has told us what happened? 

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52 


Helps For Student-Writers 


The careful author tantalizes the reader by keeping him “guessing/' 
One means of doing this is a curiosity-arousing, nonrevealing title. 
The one above mentioned might be phrased, “Jimmy and the 
Burglar,” which leaves what happened between them in doubt. 

Next comes the viewpoint. Rarely is a good argument advanced 
in favor of the shifting viewpoint. It may be excusable in certain 
stories, but it is a makeshift which has a tendency to be weakening. 
It means that the author-general is dividing his forces. Concen- 
trate — focus the reader’s interest from first to last on the incidents 
as viewed from the angle of a single dominant character — usually 
the one chiefly concerned in the climax. 

Then there is the time element. Have you developed your 
story by a series of new’ starts such as : The next day he — One 
morning she — A month later they — Next time he motored to town 
his — and the like? If so, you have been sending out your forces 
in small battalions. An editor would term the story episodic. With 
each break in time, the reader must begin over and acquire interest 
in a new incident. Each juncture is a place of leakage. Plan your 
story so that there are the fewest possible lapses of time. For the 
average short-story, three fresh beginnings strain the limit. A story 
developed according to the outline for “A Matter of Preparedness” 
in a preceding chapter would be effective in this respect, because 
the action would cover but a few hours, without definite break. 

The episodic story usually can be unified. Take as many as 
possible of the early incidents and weave them into one continuous 
happening. Then turn over to the conclusion and gather the last 
several scenes into an unbroken succession of incidents. “Bunch” 
the “in-between” incidents similarly, or use them for connecting 
material. 

Thus, the story may depend on a succession of incidents such 
as this: Thieves break into George’s hencoop. The next day 
George goes to town and buys a gun. The following night he hears 
a noise in the hencoop and runs out, but the robbers have escaped. 
Three nights later, instead of going to bed, he lies in wait for them 
and springs out in time to make a capture. 


Why Strive for Unity 


53 


Now* the same succession of incidents may be worked into a 
continuous, instead of an episodic, narrative, the action covering a 
few hours with no pronounced lapses of time. Gathering them up 
so, we have the following : 

George returns home late one evening after buying a gun. We 
learn by retrospect that thieves have been bothering his hencoop of 
late. Just as he is getting ready for bed, he hears a suspicious 
noise and hastens out. He finds no sign of the robbers, so goes 
back into the house ; but instead of retiring, he slips out of the front 
door, around to the rear, and lies in wait. When the thieves return, 
he springs from concealment and captures them. 

Unity of setting is closely allied to unity of time. Not only 
should the incidents be as nearly continuous as possible, but they 
should, generally speaking, occur without overmuch shifting from 
one place to another. A study of the drama will prove definitely 
helpful to the author who desires to obtain unity of composition, 
because the writer for the stage is usually compelled to concen- 
trate all the action possible into from one to four continuous 
scenes. 

Sometimes diffusion is the result of making two or three crises 
out of what should form the material for a single climax. Take a 
typical form of detective story. The elements are: A crime has 
been committed, but the identity of the criminal is unknown. The 
detective-hero determines to effect a capture, and he is anxious to 
get ahead of a rival detective. This is a timeworn situation, but it 
will serve for illustration. 

The elements of the problem are three: Who committed the 
crime? Will the criminal be captured? Which detective will effect 
the capture? 

A threefold problem makes possible three different crises, which 
may be strung out one after another. First, the hero may discover 
the criminal’s identity ; second, the rival detective may abandon the 
chase; third, the criminal may be captured by the hero. 

But this is a foolish division of our forces. With the passing 
of the first crisis one element of suspense is lost; with the passing 


54 


Helps For Student-Writers 


of the second two-thirds of the suspense evaporates ; only one ele- 
ment remains. The result of this disorganized attack on the read- 
er’s interest is the direct reverse of cumulative intensity. 

It will be far better to combine the three in one for the most 
crushing attack possible. Let the rivalry between the detectives be 
keen up to the last minute, thus keeping the reader in doubt as to 
who, if either, is going to make the capture ; and let the hero’s final 
coup result simultaneously in the unmasking and the capture of the 
criminal. 

In actual life, such a problem would be likely to resolve itself by 
degrees, as first outlined. But it is no distortion of life to combine 
the elements of the unfoldment so that they come out together and 
intensify each other. No matter how dramatic an event in real life 
may be, usually there is a possible combination of its elements — 
apparent to the artist’s eye — which would have made its effect a 
little more telling. 

This illustration has particular reference to the short-story. 
In long fiction it is necessary to have several successive crises ; but 
each should be a concentration of all the suspense elements in a 
particular passage. Thus, if your aim is a crisis every two thou- 
sand words, try to save the elements for a “big bang” at the end 
of the two thousand, instead of distributing their force through the 
entire chapter. 

Some stories owe their lack of unity to characters or incidents 
which are unnecessary. A closely knit story is one that has been 
reduced to its lowest possible terms. The best way to ascertain 
whether a thread of narrative is essential to the story is to outline 
a version in which it is omitted. 

To illustrate by means of a simple example: Two friends, 
Fred and Al, fall in love with the same girl. Al, finding that she 
loves Fred, quarrels with him. Fred hesitates to ask the girl to 
marry him, because he is poor, while she is wealthy. Discovering 
this, she pretends to lose her money, whereat Fred proposes and is 
accepted. Al comes to Fred after it is over, admits that the best 
man has won, and the friendship is renewed. 


Why Strive for Unity 


65 


Now this outline, on examination, contains unnecessary inci- 
dents and an unnecessary character. Eliminate Al, and the real 
story still remains ; it is comprised in the sentences : “Fred hesitates 
tO' ask the girl to marry him, because he is poor, while she is 
wealthy. Discovering this, she pretends to lose her money, whereat 
Fred proposes and is accepted.” The climax concerns only these 
two, therefore they are the only characters needed. The relations 
of Al and Fred have nothing to do with the story. 

Unity is nine-tenths of technique. The foregoing are but a few 
of the more important ways in which unity must enter into the con- 
struction of an effective story. 




THE PRECIPICE OF 
SUSPENSE 


I T has been pointed out that plot is based upon problem and solu- 
tion. But why do we require a problem? In order to create 
doubt, uncertainty, suspense. The technique of fiction thus resolves 
itself into the creation of suspense. Without a problem, there is no 
suspense ; without suspense, there is no interest — no “punch/' 

Suspense is the element that tightens the grip of a plot. It 
prevents us from accepting what happens in an impersonal, matter- 
of-fact way. In its working it is altogether emotional. 

A good way of attaining plot suspense is to keep constantly in 
mind the analogy of a blindfolded man picking his way along the 
edge of a precipice. With every step that brings him nearer to the 
brink, the suspense, from a spectator’s point of view, becomes more 
keen. So, likewise, when a reader is made to feel that a character 
is heading to destruction, the grip of the situation increases. When 
he approaches within a few inches of the brink, something unusual 
is required to distract our fascinated attention. A misstep, a 
stumble! we forget to breathe. The character rights himself with 
an effort, and we are relieved. But only for a moment. Another 
step, and again he stumbles. Frantically he struggles to regain his 
footing ; it is useless, and with a final scramble, he plunges over the 
ledge. 

This point of intensity in the story marks the climax. Of 
course, the solution of the problem demands that the character shall 
be saved from destruction. There must be a snowdrift at the bot- 


58 


Helps For Student-Writers 


tom to break {iis fall, or a projecting root which he seizes as he 
goes over, thus relieving the suspense at its maximum. 

The principle of this analogy may be applied to every form of 
fiction. In the pure adventure tale, the precipice may be any danger- 
ous situation. In an industrial story, it may stand for business ruin. 
The steps toward the brink are those successive bolts of misfortune 
which make a financial crash the more inevitable. The final failure 
corresponds to the plunge over the cliff — and the providential snow- 
bank is replaced by some business turn that converts ruin into 
triumph. 

In the modern problem story, the heroine may totter on the 
brink of deserting her husband for another man. He is her preci- 
pice; if she yields to the fascination and makes the contemplated 
misstep, ruin will be spelled for her. And when she leaps — but, of 
course, there will be a saving incident to surprise and relieve the 
reader. 

In the illustration employed for “ ‘Snowballing’ a Plot,” the 
precipice was the danger of capture. When Steve was surrounded 
by the outlaws, he tottered on the brink. The projecting root that 
saved him was his policy of unpreparedness. Scotty, too, went over 
the precipice, and the unexpected happened. 

Many a well-conceived but strangely ineffective story needs 
such intensification as is contained in this suggestion. Probably the 
author introduced the saving complication too soon — the reader had 
not yet become sufficiently worried over the impending fate of the 
character. A rescue while the hero is still some distance from the 
brink will never be as effective as one that comes while he is actually 
toppling over. 

Again, the story may fail because the reader was not made to 
feel that the character was approaching disaster. It will not do to 
write a story about a pleasure jaunt, then tack on a stumble over the 
edge of a precipice in the last few paragraphs. Keep the impending 
danger before the reader from the opening to the concluding para- 
graphs. 

It may be that the story fails because the saving feature is too 


The Precipice of Suspense 


59 


obvious. Knowing that there is a snowbank at the base, we can not 
be aroused to great apprehension as the plunge is made. 

And finally, perhaps the story fails because the characters have 
not been made personally interesting. The hero is so lacking in 
vividness that we do not care whether he falls over the brink or not. 

This brings us to the strongest of all methods of attaining sus- 
pense, the “character” method, in which the personal element is 
employed as an intensifier. The author makes it a point to win the 
reader’s sympathy for the character involved — knowing that in such 
sympathy he obtains a tremendous leverage on the emotions. 

Tell a mother that her baby has fallen down the well; the 
result will be a vivid flash of emotion. Nowhere near the same 
intensity of feeling would result if we said : “Ten thousand soldiers 
are being killed today in the European trenches.” The latter 
tragedy impresses the reason as more momentous than the death of 
an individual ; but reason has nothing to do with the emotional grip 
of a story. We feel more concerned over the fate of one who is 
personally dear to us than over the fate of ten thousand strange 
soldiers. 

Suspense, then, depends very strongly on character drawing. 
The more liking has been aroused for the characters, the stronger 
our emotional reaction to whatever may happen to them. As an 
author, don’t assume that the reader is going to care that John 
kissed Joan beneath the grape arbor. Kisses are commonplace — un- 
less we care! So the first thing necessary is to make us like Joan 
and John. When we have become interested in them through their 
speech and actions, the kissing episode will have a personal meaning 
to us. Or reverse the situation and make John a rascal. Because 
we care for Joan, the scene will arouse our emotions ; it will matter 
vitally to us whether she is kissed, and who performs the deed. 

If the heroine has been made sufficiently interesting to the 
reader, a passage descriptive of her hesitation over the gown she 
shall wear to dinner may be intensely absorbing. 

In making the character appeal vivid, the necessity for limiting 
the cast of a story should be clearly borne in mind. The interest 


60 


Helps For Student-Writers 


of a situation loses its edge as it is scattered. If you wish to make 
the reader feel the full horrors of war, instead of describing the 
annihilation of a regiment, bring home to us the frightfulness by 
telling of a pet kitten caught in the vortex of battle, or of a child, a 
crippled veteran, a soldier’s wife — some individual victim with whom 
we can enter into full sympathy. Humanity in the mass becomes 
impersonal. Only the intellect can vibrate in sympathy with a 
collective institution, while it is in the realm of emotion that sus- 
pense holds sway. Many a strong, well-conceived — but, alas, un- 
published — piece of fiction has failed because it involved chiefly two 
nations at war with each other, or two social factions, instead of one 
or two strongly individualized characters. 

It is a combination of character appeal and intensity of inci- 
dent that vivifies suspense to the compelling point. Each strength- 
ens the other. The interest that may have been aroused in the 
characters is intensified by putting them in a very tight fix, and a 
striking event becomes more striking if we are personally interested 
in the characters. Even a stranger becomes an object of interest if he 
happens to be hanging by the tips of his fingers from the fourth- 
story window of a burning building; but suppose that the man 
happens to be a dear friend — and observe the increased emotional 
strain. 

The question often arises : Shall the reader be fully acquainted 
with the nature of the danger threatening the hero, or shall he be 
mystified until the trap is sprung at the climax? For example, he 
may be fighting a band of outlaws. One form of suspense will 
consist in telling the reader exactly what the plans of the outlaws 
are; we shall see them slowly stealing upon the hero, while he 
remains unconscious of his danger. The other form will consist in 
keeping the reader as well as the hero in ignorance of the enemy’s 
plans. Which is the more effective? 

It depends altogether on the individual instance. The grip 
of the first form of suspense is in the apparent certainty of disaster ; 
the grip of the second form is in the uncertainty. As a general 
thing, uncertainty makes for greater suspense than certainty. 


FIXING THE VIEWPOINT 


G REATER confusion exists with reference to viewpoint than to 
any other technical feature of short-story development. Wri- 
ters are continually advised to employ the single and to avoid the 
shifting viewpoint; but more stories suffer from error or uncer- 
tainty in this particular than from any other ailment. 

Certain authorities have gone the length of asserting that the 
single viewpoint should never be violated. I would hardly make so 
broad a statement. Superficially, at least, a large proportion of 
stories published in good magazines violate its principles. But the 
beginning writer makes a serious mistake in assuming that he can 
afford to employ the shifting viewpoint because a well-known 
author does so. The experienced story-teller “gets by” with a tale 
so handled, because he possesses exceptional finesse. He corre- 
sponds to the trained ropewalker, whose skill enables him to cross a 
chasm on a slender strand of hemp that would be likely to send an 
amateur funambulist headlong to disaster. 

Viewpoint, in fiction, means exactly what it does in ordinary 
life. It is the position of one who views the incidents. In readng 
a story, we naturally assume the viewpoint that the author took in 
writing it, just as in looking at a photographed scene we instinct- 
ively assume the position which the camera occupied in recording it. 

The single viewpoint, as usually defined, is that of some one 
person in the story. The author assumes the identity of that char- 
acter and so, reflectively, does the reader. The most obvious exam- 
ple of the single viewpoint is, of course, found in the first-person 

61 


62 Helps For Student-Writers 


story, in which the author relates the experiences as if they were 
his own. Thus: 

I sat for some time before my window, musing on the strange disclosure 
that my friend had just made. If it were true, I could readily see how it 
might be to my advantage to give up my roving life, get married, and settle 
down. With sudden determination, I rose and put on my hat, then started up 
the narrow lane that joined my cottage with the farmhouse where Mary lived. 
I found her at home, and imagined that I saw a look of eager anticipation in 
her eyes, though her voice was calm as she greeted me. I would have given a 
great deal to know whether she too had heard the news; but nothing in her 
manner gave any indication Concerning this. 

The viewpoint in such a passage is clearly defined. We assume 
the hero’s identity for the time being and see events through his 
eyes, we hear only what he hears and think only his thoughts. 
Everything that passes through his mind is known to us, but the 
mind of Mary is a closed book. 

If we should go on to say : “Mary was thinking that this was 
a strange hour for a call,” a glaring distortion would result. Since 
the viewpoint character does not know what Mary thinks, neither 
can the reader know. But the same thought can be brought out in 
a way that does no violence to the viewpoint. Examples : “I sup- 
pose she considered it a strange hour for a call”; or, “I learned 
afterward that she considered it a strange hour for a call.” Either 
phrase gives the thought as it would naturally come through the 
viewpoint character. 

But the first-person narrative is not the only one in which a 
strict single viewpoint may be maintained. The same paragraph 
may be written in the third person, with no change except in the 
pronouns : 

Martin sat for som© time before his window, musing on the strange disclos- 
ure that his friend had just made. If it were true, he could readily see how it 
might be to his advantage to give up his roving life, get married, and settle 
down. With sudden determination, he rose and put on his hat, then started 
up the narrow lane that joined his cottage with the farmhouse where Mary 
lived. He found her at home, and imagined that he saw a look of eager an- 
ticipation in her eyes, though her voice was calm as she greeted him. He would 
have given a great deal to know whether she too had heard the news; but 
nothing in her manner gave any indication concerning this. Martin reflected 
that perhaps she considered it a strange hour for a call. 

The same rules apply here that apply to the first-person form 
of narration. The same care must be taken to guard against dis- 
crepancies. If the reader assumes Martin’s identity, he can witness 
nothing that Martin does not witness, nor think the thoughts of any 


Fixing the Viewpoint 


63 


other character. It is good practice in strict singleness of view- 
point to write stories in the first person, then convert them into 
third person, as above. 

When text-book writers speak of the single viewpoint, this is 
the viewpoint to which they usually refer. It is the simplest form, 
and the most practical for the w'riter who is yet uncertain of his 
technique. This viewpoint makes for vividness of impression. For 
a time the reader actually lives the life of the viewpoint character. 

But there are other single viewpoints. For instance, there is 
the viewpoint of a spectator. The action is described as it would 
appear to an auditor in a theater. In a story told from the external 
viewpoint no unexpressed thoughts of any of the characters in 
the story can be quoted, but, on the other hand, w'e are not limited 
to that part of the action which is witnessed by one character alone. 
In order to conform to the external viewpoint, our paragraph would 
be presented after this fashion : 

Martin sat for some time before his window, musing. He had sat thus ever 
since his friend made the strange disclosure. Brooks had pointed out that, 
under the circumstances, it would be to his advantage to give up his roving 
,life. get married, and settle down. To this, Martin had made no reply; but sud- 
denly, as if seized with new determination, he rose and put on his hat, then 
started up the narrow lane that joined his cottage with the farmhouse where 
Mary lived. He found her at home, and though her voice was calm as she 
greeted him, a look of eager anticipation could have been seen in her eyes. 
Nothing in her words or manner indicated whether she had heard the news. 
“Perhaps you may think it a strange hour for a call,” commented Martin. 

Each viewpoint brings with it new’ limitations — and new oppor- 
tunities. From the spectator’s point of view w'e gain the direct advan- 
tage of stating certain things as facts, instead of disclosing them 
through the mind of a character. We can say definitely that “a look 
of eager anticipation could have been seen” in Mary’s eyes ; but we 
can not state with authority that Martin saw' it. We can picture 
Martin before his window musing, but only by implication can we 
indicate the probable burden of his thoughts; whereas, from his 
personal viewpoint it was possible to say just what occupied his 
mind. 

The external viewpoint is rarely advisable. Though sometimes 
it may help to keep the reader “guessing,” it does not permit him 
to “live” the incidents, and so the effect is usually less vivid than 
when the personal viewpoint is employed. 


64 


Helps For Student-Writers 


One of the most useful of all viewpoints is that which I might 
call, for want of a better term, the “shadow” viewpoint. A limita- 
tion of the strict personal viewpoint is that the central character can 
not logically picture himself. He is the camera, as it were, through 
which events are viewed, and it is only by the aid of a mirror that 
the camera can take its own picture. Mirrors are not always con- 
venient to introduce in fiction. It does not sound convincing for me 
to say : “My eyes flashed fire ; my expression was terrible to behold ; 
I stood before my enemy like an avenging demon.” How can I 
know that I presented such an appearance ? I may have felt like an 
avenging demon, but perhaps to an outsider I looked like a sputter- 
ing lunatic. It is all right in a third-person story to say of the view- 
point character : “Mary was serenely conscious of looking her best.” 
That expresses her state of mind. But if w'e said : “Mary looked 
her best,” we would be assuming the viewpoint of an observer 
toward her. 

So much for what may be termed the personal viewpoint — a 
single viewpoint centered wholly in one character. But it would 
undoubtedly be an advantage to have a little more leeway than this 
viewpoint gives us: a leeway which would permit us to tell not 
only what our character thought, but how’ he looked — in fact, to tell 
some things of which he was unaware, as in this paragraph : 


Jake eyed his cards with such concentration that he did not see Frisco 
Ike slyly draw an ace from his bootleg and slip it into the hand before him. 
As Jake studied his cards, he was endeavoring to make up his mind whether 
to “raise” or merely to “call.” He felt that his opponent was “bluffing,” but 
his heavy brows gathered in a tense frown as he estimated the cost of going 
too far. He knew that Ike was a shrewd poker player and that it behooved him 
to be alert. The roomful of hardened characters reflected the tensity of the 
moment. All eyes were fixed on Jake; even the barkeeper behind him stopped 
polishing glasses to await the decision. 


Here we have obviously broken several rules, if the viewpoint 
is limited as before mentioned. We give Jake’s thoughts, yet we 
describe some action that he does not witness, and include descrip- 
tive touches which conflict with the limitations of the personal view- 
point. Nevertheless, the paragraph is a legitimate employment of 
the single viewpoint. 

For convenience, I have named this the “shadow” viewpoint. 


Fixing the Viewpoint 


65 


If the writer does not understand its laws, this viewpoint has 
many pitfalls. For instance, the question arises: Since we have 
been permitted to tell what goes on behind Jake’s back, are w'e 
privileged to stray wider afield and to tell what happened outside of 
the gambling room? 

As a matter of fact, our liberty does not normally extend that 
far. What, then, are the limitations of this viewpoint? 

The answer involves some abstractions which I hope may not 
be beyond the attentive writer. If they are, he will do best to leave 
this viewpoint alone. 

The viewpoint, while not strictly Jake’s, is that of his sub- 
jective or astral self, to employ a term familiar to occultists. For 
fictional purposes, we assume that this shadowy double-self exists 
and that the story is told from its viewpoint. Consider its proper- 
ties and limitations. As an extension of the man himself it reaches 
beyond him, yet is a part of him. It thinks in unison with the man 
to whom it belongs, yet can look at him as an outsider, can see 
events that he may be too preoccupied to notice. It can observe 
threatening dangers which he may not realize, but can not warn 
him — unless he is in a very passive state. It has no separate exist- 
ence and can not ordinarily witness events that are entirely out of 
his range; still, it has a definitely wider vision than he possesses. 
It can not enter into the thoughts of any character other than the 
man it overshadows. 

This may sound like a very difficult and complex viewpoint, yet 
it is that which the majority of writers instinctively employ. They 
enter into close accord with the viewpoint character, but do not 
actually confine themselves to his or her limitations. 

The utmost vividness of effect is possible through employing 
this viewpoint. As in the strict personal viewpoint, the reader enters 
into the thoughts and emotions of the central character, yet at the 
same time the character is a vivid external reality. Our illustra- 
tive paragraph might be elaborated under this viewpoint as follows : 

Martin sat for some time before his window, his frank, handsome features 
reflecting the intensity of his thought as he mused on the strange disclosure 
that his friend had just made. If it were true— and at this he smiled his charac- 


66 


Helps For Student-Writers 


teristic flickering smile — he could readily see how it might be to his advantage 
to give up his roving life, get married, and settle down. With sudden determ- 
ination, he rose and put on his hat — a jaunty hat that made him feel and Iook 
younger than he had allowed himself to feel for years. He started briskly— -an 
altogether pleasing figure — up the narrow lane that joined his cottage with the 
farmhouse where Mary lived. She was at home, and he imagined that he saw 
,a look of eager anticipation in her eyes, though her voice was calm as she 
greeted him. He would have given a great deal to know whether she too had 
heard the news; but only the letter concealed in her bodice betrayed that she 
might have received word, and he did not see the hasty movement with which 
she hid the letter there. Martin reflected that perhaps she considered it a 
strange hour for a call, and his expression was rather anxious as he opened the 
conversation. 


This may or may not be an improvement on either the strict 
personal or the strict external viewpoint. The point is that it gives 
us greater freedom than either form, although it has its limitations. 
It permits us to paint a picture that is richer in atmosphere and 
details. It allows us to tell what Martin thought, how he looked, 
and to include mention of some things within the range of the 
“shadow” viewpoint, of which he had no knowledge whatever. 

Of course, as we have transcended physical limitations, there 
is no reason why we should stop. The author may consciously take 
the viewpoint of an invisible sprite with the pow’er to skip about, 
entering into the consciousness of one character after another. Thus 
considered, the so-called shifting viewpoint becomes a single view- 
point. But such liberties are dangerous. The farther we stray 
from ordinary physical limitations, the more difficult it is for the 
reader to follow us. 

Then there is the omniscient viewpoint, used chiefly in novels, 
where a wider sweep is permissible. The author assumes the supe- 
rior vantage point of a god toward his characters — with the privi- 
lege of entering into their thoughts, individually or collectively, and 
even of telling what none of them can have thought. 

A collective viewpoint may be employed to advantage in some 
stories— and this, too, is a single viewpoint, if consistently handled. 
The action will center around one or two characters who are viewed 
externally, but not so much from the angle of a disinterested spec- 
tator as from that of the community as a whole. School stories, 
army stories, village stories, and others of similar nature may fre- 
quently be found illustrative of this. 


Fixing the Viewpoint 


67 


As a rule, the viewpoint character is the central personage of 
the story ; but in some instances it is necessary to narrate the inci- 
dents from the angle of a minor character. Such a viewpoint might 
be called the “personified shadow” viewpoint. This viewpoint is 
popular in detective fiction, in which the author does not care to 
give away the climax by telling what is in the detective’s mind, yet 
wishes the reader to follow his movements closely. Thus, in the 
Sherlock Holmes stories we have Dr. Watson as the viewpoint 
character — a personified shadow of the great detective. In Arthur 
B. Reeve’s Craig Kennedy stories, the assistant, Walter Jameson, 
maintains the viewpoint, though the detective is the chief character. 

On rare occasions it will happen that a story demands the shift- 
ing viewpoint. The beginner had better not attempt such stories. They 
force the reader to make a new adjustment toward the story while 
it is being unfolded. In skilful hands this new adjustment — this 
changing of trains, as it were — may be so deftly accomplished that 
the reader does not realize that it is happening. There will be a 
gradual withdrawal from one viewpoint and a gradual entering 
into accord with a different character. Or, again, the change 
may be accomplished by a definite break in the story — a chapter 

division, or a change of scene, or a lapse of time. Such a break 

does not obviate the necessity for causing the reader to make a 

new adjustment, but it minimizes the sense of confusion that 

accompanies a too abrupt transition. The break, so to speak, wipes 
the mental slate clean for a new beginning. 

The point of view should be a writer’s first consideration in 
planning a story. When a plot idea has been isolated, examine it 
first in the light of this requirement. Can the story be developed 
from a single point of view'? If not, probably something is 
wrong — the details have not been sufficiently worked out. When 
the defect has been corrected, the question arises, whose point of 
view will best bring out the theme and maintain the interest. It may 
be suggested that usually the story belongs to the character who 
undergoes the most pronounced change, who passes through the 
most intense activity. In a mystery story, the viewpoint belongs 


68 


Helps For Student-Writers 


certainly to some character who does not know the solution, but 
who has an intense interest in finding it out. 

In actual narration, the viewpoint adopted should be impressed 
on the reader as early as possible — usually in the first paragraph. 
Thus, if Martin’s thoughts are to be quoted anywhere in the course 
of the narrative, indicate this by quoting some of his thoughts in 
the opening paragraph, so that the reader may be familiarized with 
the point of view that is to be maintained throughout. Whatever 
the viewpoint of the story as a whole, try to let the opening para- 
graph represent it in miniature, and thereafter do not go beyond 
the bounds thus defined. 

It should be mentioned, however, that occasionally the view- 
point may be assumed more gradually. Thus, the author may begin 
by describing the landscape, then several of the persons in it, then 
the central character, finally passing beyond externals and entering 
into the inner life and thoughts of that character. This is a process 
of gradually entering into the relation of that character’s shadowy 
second-self. It is a transition by means of which the reader sloughs 
off his own identity in order to enter into that of the fiction charac- 
ter. Artistically handled, this transition may be very effective — it is 
a sort of “descent into matter.” But it belongs rather to long 
fiction than to the short-story, in which the first sentences usually 
fix the viewpoint. 


WORD LENSES 


r I A O most writers, the planning of a literary composition, com- 
pared with the actual writing, is easy. In story-telling plot and 
construction follow’ laws that are within the comprehension of all 
who possess average constructive and mechanical sense. But narra- 
tion is a more elusive problem. It depends much on ability to feel 
the way. 

What is it that gives vitality and charm to the work of one writer, 
while that of another — rhetorically as correct — is cold and lifeless? 
What is that intangible quality called style? 

Style is the impress of a writer’s personality. As a man comes 
to be considered by his friends a cheerful or a gloomy person, a 
well-poised character or a weakling, so the writer is judged by the 
personal qualities he radiates through his style. “The style is the 
man.” 

Self-expression depends first of all on facility in the handling 
of words. The Frenchman who said to an American girl, “When 
you fell in the lake you must have been soused !” was not revealing 
his inner nature through the ungallant phrase ; he was merely strug- 
gling, with an unfamiliar medium, to convey the idea, “you must 
have been soaking wet.” It is evident that perfect self-expression 
is possible only to the writer who is skilled in the command of 
language. 

Sometimes the novice will give up in discouragement because 
his ideas, when reduced to expression, seem crude, insipid, and 
commonplace. He reasons that this is evidence of mental poverty, 
when in reality it only show’s his want of facility in the use of words. 

69 


70 


Helps For Student-Writers 


A beautiful landscape is not less beautiful because the beginner’s 
effort to transfer it to canvas has proved a daub. Nor need it be 
said that the author’s conceptions are inferior because his endeavor 
to express them has failed. 

It is, indeed, a good sign that one is able to realize such short- 
comings. Too many writers look at their work through eyes that 
see not the result but only the original conception. Frequently we 
hear statements such as: “My story is as good as many that are 
published. If I could send it out under the name of Rex Beach 
or Mary Roberts Rinehart, I’m satisfied that the editors would 
gobble it up.” 

In an exceptional instance, this might be true. But the chances 
are that the author is self-deceived. In plain words, there is a 
difference between what he has written and what he thinks he has 
written. 

For of every piece of literature there are two versions. The 
first is the version that existed in the author’s mind; the other 
is the more or less imperfect copy of it which he succeeded in 
putting into language. In the case of a writer who has acquired 
facility in self-expression the two may be almost identical. The rest 
of us may, like Don Quixote, image a knightly combat with giants — 
while our picture of the fray appears to others only a ridiculous 
tilt with windmills. The absurdity of Cervantes’s hero lay in his 
failure to realize how far short fell the result from his intent. Shun 
this danger. It is maya, the great illusion, which binds the writer 
to his limitations. 

The great obstacle in the way of authorship is language. Words 
are a necessary evil ; we should be better off could we dispense 
with them. True, they serve, in a crude and fragmentary way, to 
convey ideas from one mind to another; but even in skilful hands 
they accomplish the result imperfectly. It is easy to illustrate this. 
In one of the current magazines we find this bit of description : 

A small creature she was, with a form that was slightly bent. Silvery hair 
was brushed back from a wrinkled face which showed traces of care and 
trouble; trembling hands were kept busy wiping tears from her faded eyes. 

A fairly vivid description — yet consider. The author, when 


Word Lenses 


71 


he wrote it, had a definite picture in mind. To your mind, as you 
read it, a definite picture also is suggested. Now’ suppose that 
your mental image and the author’s could be photographed and 
compared. Both would fit the description, but would there be 
even a family resemblance between the two women? If a million 
people should read the story without the aid of illustrations, would 
any two visualize quite the same person? Would Peter Newell’s 
portrait of the old lady resemble Howard Chandler Christy’s? 

In another column we read : 

It was the Sabbath, a balmy, summery, early autumn day, with a bright sun 
dimmed by a blue-tinted haze. 

A clear description in a few words; but do we gain from it 
just the picture that was in the author’s mind? A Southerner’s 
conception of a “balmy” day will differ materially from that of one 
who lives in the extreme north. In the mountain regions we have 
an entirely different sort of haze from that which a seacoast dweller 
would picture. 

So, after all, words are but an imperfect medium for conveying 
concepts. Our reason for using them is that, such as they are, they 
constitute the best means available for transferring ideas from one 
mind to another. 

Words form, in fact, the projecting lens of the mental stereopti- 
con. An image of thought or action exists in the mind of the 
author. He can not implant this image directly in the mind of the 
reader; the projecting lens of words is needed. The functions of 
authorship are therefore twofold. First, one must have definite 
thoughts to convey ; second, he must devise the most perfect word 
lens possible with which to convey them. 

The word lens of a novice is likely to be crude. It will convey 
but a distorted suggestion of the picture in his mind. At one point 
the thought will be intensified, at another it will be obscured by too 
much detail, at another the meaning will be entirely lost. Persistent 
and minute grinding is required before the lens will convey a clear, 
definite image. For an illustration of this grinding process, suppose 
that I have in mind a little domestic scene which I attempt to 
convey to the reader through the following word lens : 


72 


Helps For Student-Writers 


Grace moved toward her husband in a frenzy of exasperation. Nervously 
she upbraided and reproached him for his thoughtlessness in leaving the cellar 
light burning. 

A glance will tell that this combination of words throws the 
scene entirely out of focus. Let us consider it in detail. 

The word “moved” is too indefinite— -it fails to focus the rays 
of light from my concept. Though the reader is given a hazy idea 
of an advance toward her husband, there is nothing to indicate 
whether Grace walked, floated, or dived. 

“Frenzy” next draw's our attention. It is an intensifying word, 
suggestive of wildness, of frothing at the mouth. A word so 
extreme should be used only to express the extreme of emotion. 
It unduly intensifies a trivial domestic quarrel and should be done 
away with. 

“Nervously” exaggerates another triviality; it is unlikely that 
nervousness would be observable above the more pronounced state 
of exasperation. 

“Upbraided and reproached.” Here our lens is overthick — too 
many words are used to express a simple thought. Omit one of the 
verbs and the phrase will be more clear-cut. 

In the final phrase, “thoughtlessness” implies an almost wilful 
lack of consideration for others, while “carelessness” or “neglect” 
is all that we wish to convey. In this case again, a milder word 
produces a clearer impression of the fact. 

A correction of the lens that removes these flaws reduces our 
passage to the following form : 

, Grace took a step toward her husband. In exasperation at his carelessness 
she upbraided him for leaving the cellar light burning. 

Beyond question a more correct picture of the scene has re- 
sulted from this careful regrinding. 

A basic principle of word choice, which has been brought out 
through this example, is that extreme terms should be sparingly 
employed. It is better to understate a fact than to run any risk 
of overstating it. Overstatement results in artificiality — in melo- 
drama. 

Melodrama consists not so much in the nature of the action as 
in its treatment. Every one is familiar with the concave and convex 


Word Lenses 


73 


mirrors which form a part of the fun-making machinery in amuse- 
ment resorts ; one distorts the observer into an inconceivably tall 
and slender person, while another reflects him as ridiculously squat 
and of immense girth. 

The melodramatic writer employs a word lens that gives similar 
distortion. He describes rather commonplace happenings in lurid 
terms. He endeavors to magnify his characters into giants by 
picturing them in hyperbolical language. The discerning reader is 
not likely to be convinced by such devices. Thus, of his heroine, 
this author says: 

She was of wondrous beauty; her eyes were limpid pools of azure, her skin 
was whiter than driven snow, and her cheeks rivaled the tint of the rose. 

We know that the author is not permitting us to see the real 
character back of this extravagant description; he is trying to 
magnify her through his word lens. How much more appropriate 
is the following: 

She was a girl whom few would hesitate to call pretty. Large blue eyes and 
a naturally clear complexion were her chief attractions. 

This picture is convincing and suggests a real character be- 
cause of its moderation. 

Ability to manufacture clear, perfect word lenses comes only 
from the practice of minute revision. Remember the first principle, 
which is moderation. And never permit yourself to rest satisfied 
with a word or a statement which fails to convey just the right 
shade of meaning — unless you wish your vision to become clouded 
so that presently you will be unable to tell a distorted image from 
the true. 

The principle of the word lens is back of the editorial demand 
for conciseness. In optics, it is well know’n that a thick lens of 
poor-quality glass will obscure the light so that the image projected 
through will be vague. But grind this same piece of glass down 
to comparative thinness, and the tendency toward obscuration is 
minimized. True, a thick lens will magnify more powerfully; but 
this is no advantage if the image is clouded. 

So it is with narration. “The editor sent back my five-thou- 
sand-word story, saying that it was twice too long,” complains a 


74 


Helps For Student-Writers 


writer; “yet in every issue he publishes others equally long and 
just as capable of condensation.” The explanation is apparent. The 
slightest clumsiness in the handling of words — and few writers are 
wholly beyond such clumsiness — clouds the image. This effect may 
be scarcely noticeable if we economize our words ; but if we make 
a thick lens out of our not-quite-perfect material, the ideas we wish 
to convey will lack the clear-cut outlines essential to their adequate 
expression. The skilful writer, whose mastery of style is so com- 
plete that he can make a crystal-clear lens of great thickness, may 
indulge as much as he desires in descriptive passages, atmosphere, 
and intricate characterization. But such writers know that even 
they lose some of their proper force if they yield to wordiness. 

Condensation is important training for one who would develop 
skill at grinding word lenses. By studying to find a single word 
that will answer for a phrase, a phrase that will answer for a para- 
graph, the writer acquires a fine sense of word distinctions. 

What, then, of the earlier statement that style is the impress of 
a writer’s personality? If style accomplishes this change in the 
material, then does it not involve some distortion of the picture? 

Only indirectly. The personality of the writer is the light 
which projects the image. The color of this light will produce some 
modification. If the woid lens is a perfect medium of expression, 
whatever is conveyed through it will be a clear image of the writer’s 
thought, tinted by his personality. Thus, of two writers describing 
the same event, one may color it with humor, the other with gloom. 

Readers are more susceptible than many realize to the intangi- 
ble impress of personality which shines through an author’s lan- 
guage. One style suggests high ideals and enthusiasm, another 
reveals depression and cynicism, each writer, to the practised intui- 
tion, betraying his inner nature through his manner of expression. 
The public should not be censured for preferring those writers 
whose mental outlook colors their work with the rosy tints of self- 
confidence, of enthusiasm, of romance and of humor. 

And herein may be found a not unprofitable suggestion for the 
gloomy and embittered writer who desires to be widely read. 


THE PLACE OF TECHNIQUE 


■V/T ASTER the rules of literary technique, then forget all about 
them.” Paradoxical as it may seem, this is good advice. 
But it is sometimes puzzling to understand why, as soon as rules are 
mastered, they cease to have value. What is the place of technique 
in a writer's development? 

Technique is the eggshell which protects the embryo in its 
formative stages. When the wings of genius have developed, the 
shell hopelessly limits their use and further growth. It has served 
its purpose and should be cast aside — forgotten. 

Like the birdlet, the writer can not soar before he has outgrown 
his limitations — if the shell is too soon discarded, he will cease to 
grow. So it is that the young fiction writer will rarely begin to 
show progress until he or she ceases writing at random and system- 
atically masters the rules and formulas of the art. When power of 
orderly self-expression has been attained through conforming to 
technical standards, then, and not before, can the limitations be 
removed. 

This is why the young writer can not afford to excuse himself 
for straining a point of technique by replying: “But So-and-so, 
whose name appears in all the big magazines,^ does it.” That 
the four-weeks-old chick has cast aside its shell is no proof that 
the two-weeks-old embryo can afford to do so. When you have 
acquired facility for plot building, you can afford to forget plot; 
when you can construct a story according to the single viewpoint, 
you may, if desired, employ a dozen viewpoints ; when you know 
how' to write concisely, you may feel free to indulge in elaboration. 
Break the shell before it is too late — but do not break it till you are 
sure that its purpose has been served. 

75 



CREATIVE CHARACTERIZATION 


A /T AGAZINES of today have little room for character descrip- 
-*-*-*• tion. True, the demand for vivid portrayal of character re- 
mains — but it must be met by indirect methods. 

While this statement is overbroad, inasmuch as there are 
exceptional instances, it does summarize the situation, particularly 
as regards the writer who is on the outer edge, trying to break into 
print. Authors who have attained rank and reputation are granted 
privileges which should not mislead the comparative novice. 

In some respects, at any rate, the modern tendency toward the 
elimination of such descriptive passages is to be commended. Vivid- 
ness of character drawing and convincingness of atmosphere are 
in demand as much as ever; the restriction is that they must be 
secured with economy of words. More skill is required for pre- 
senting a clearly rounded picture in a single sentence than for 
producing the same effect by pages of detailed description. In the 
ordinary story of action, a brief description when the character is 
introduced, and an occasional touch designed to bring out salient 
points in the course of the narrative are usually sufficient. 

Character drawing is fundamentally a matter of visualization on 
the part of the story-teller. If he has a clear picture in his own 
mind and fair facility in expression, the complete picture is likely 
to be conveyed to the reader in ways almost too subtle for analysis — 
even though no direct description is employed. 

It may be said that there are two methods of characterization. 
The distinction between them is rather intangible and there are all 


78 


Helps For Student-Writers 


degrees of overlapping, but they may be broadly designated as the 
“outline” method and the “creative” method. 

The outline method takes advantage of a psychological fact 
which a little introspective analysis will make clear to the student. 
This fact is that when an object is brought to one’s notice an image 
of it immediately springs into existence in the mind. We do not 
think in words — the normal habit is to think in pictures. Thus, 
the idea of taking a trip into the mountains may occur to me. 
Analyzing the thought, I find that it assumed the form of a vision 
of myself riding on a train, then standing amid typical mountain 
scenery. If I were to dwell on the subject more in detail, I should 
vision myself packing a suit-case, buying a ticket at the station, 
entering a train, and going through the whole experience — vaguely 
and disconnectedly, but still in picture form. 

Occultists assert that to the clairvoyant vision thoughts are 
actually things— creations in an octave of matter that lies outside 
the range of ordinary physical senses. Thus, when I think of a 
horse, an image of that horse appears floating before me; if I 
think of standing on top of a certain cliff, I send an image of 
myself to the top of that cliff ; if I write a novel and vividly picture 
the characters, they act out the story like puppets on a stage before 
me. These images, it is stated, are usually vague, and melt away 
when the attention is withdrawn ; but if projected by a clear, definite 
thinker, they may persist in etheric matter for some time, particu- 
larly if the mind occasionally returns to them and dwells on them. 

It is not necessary for any one to accept this interesting specu- 
lation, though it will appeal forcibly to most writers. At least, it 
forms a good working hypothesis. The writer who conceives his 
characters with strong precision is likely to impress clear pictures 
on the minds of others. 

But it is by taking advantage of this process as it occurs among 
his readers that the author is enabled to accomplish results with 
economy of words. If I say “bird,” hardly a reader of these lines 
but will have a mental picture, more or less defined, of such a 
creature. But now note how much more vivid is the image that 


Creative Characterization 


79 


springs into being if I say “chicken.” Our conception of a bird 
includes a canary, an ostrich, and hundreds of other types, though 
if an intense effort is made to give the concept definiteness of out- 
line, each thinker will tend to visualize the type with which he or she 
is most familiar. But it is easier to picture a chicken than a bird, 
because the concept is less inclusive. Similarly, it is easier to pic- 
ture a rooster than a chicken — easier to picture a fighting cock 
than a rooster. The greater the limitations implied by the word 
employed the more definite is the image. 

The clever author, knowing that when he uses a certain word 
it evokes an image, merely furnishes suggestions and the picturizing 
faculty of his reader does the rest. True, the same word does not 
call up the same picture in every mind. The word “man” to me 
tends to evoke the image of a typical American, garbed in latter- 
day clothes. The same word to a Japanese would suggest a speci- 
men of his own race. To a naked savage it would mean some one 
like himself. The point is, however, that in each case the word, if 
understood, calls up an image. 

The principle applies also to incidents. A brief statement may 
evoke a distinct picture. Thus : 

The chicken ran right in front of the automobile. 

This may seem a description of the incident, but in reality it is 
merely a suggestion upon which the reader instinctively elaborates. 
The word “chicken” forms, as it were, an outline into which flows 
the reader’s concept of whatever type of chicken he is most familiar 
with. Similarly, the picture of an automobile, of the design chiefly 
familiar to the individual reader, will fill in the outline suggested 
by that word. 

The phrase, “ran right in front,” suggests the action of 
the chicken ; but this is as far as the incident is described by the 
author. It is almost certain that further details have been supplied 
by the proclivity of the reader’s mind — like nature — to abhor a 
vacuum. For instance, nothing is mentioned in the sentence about 
the scene; but it is probable that in every resulting mental image 
a definite road has been placed under the wheels of the automobile, 


80 


Helps For Student-Writers 


and there will be a more or less hazy impression of surroundings, 
probably in the country, as an appropriate background for the 
chicken. Moreover, nothing has been said as to whether the ma- 
chine was occupied, or whether it was in motion. Yet it is probable 
that any reader’s conceptions will include at least one occupant ; also 
that the car, as well as the chicken, will appear in motion. 

Of course, this method is dependent upon an audience familiar 
with the objects symbolized by the few' suggestive words. For 
greater precision, more detail may be employed, but the power of 
evoking images contained in a simple grouping of nouns and verbs 
is immense — all because of the universal picture-making tendency 
of the human mind. 

The easy method of characterization, thus viewed, consists 
merely in exercising care that the right outline be presented. The 
first requirement is that it must be an outline which all probable 
readers are capable of filling with detail. When I say, “The tramp 
picked up a stone and threw it at the dog,” I am reasonably safe 
in assuming that my readers will have concepts ready to fill the 
outlines suggested by the nouns and verbs. But if I say, “The 
maenad selected a barong and cast it at the criosphinx,” in the 
average mind no picture would be ready to flow into the outline. 
It is obvious, therefore, that more description would be needed in 
connection with such an incident than with the first. 

Following is a characteristic bit of outline description: 

Banks was a typical broker, alert, complacent, and businesslike in appear- 
ance. 

Though this is a mere outline picture, it is likely to evoke a 
fairly clear image, because the average reader has a set of concepts 
ready to be called up by the nouns and adjectives. The word 
“broker” alone brings before the mind an image. The word “alert” 
emphasizes a certain quality in this particular broker’s make-up; 
“complacent” emphasizes another, and “businesslike” still another. 
Even though our image of a broker would include these typical 
qualities, specific mention brings them into sharper distinctness. 

The weakness of such description is that it would never sug- 


Creative Characterization 


81 


gest an image for a reader brought up in the wilderness, who had 
never seen a business man, and knew nothing of brokers. 

This is the type of characterization chiefly found in short-stories 
and novels of the day. It is practical and may be mastered by a 
fair amount of practice. But since it depends upon images already 
present in the reader’s mind, and because it fails if such images 
be not already implanted, we may safely say that it is not creative. 
It does not compare with such actual creation of character as may 
be found in the work of the masters, past or present. 

Consider for instance, the characters in a novel by Balzac, 
Dickens, or Thackeray. The large majority of their characters are 
types with which the average modern American reader is un- 
acquainted. They force their own individuality upon the mind, 
no more depending upon our previous conceptions than would a 
visitor who entered by the door of the room instead of the door 
of literature. So far as our impressions of them are concerned, they 
are actual, breathing persons. Instead of depending upon our pre- 
vious conceptions, they help, just as do new acquaintances, to ex- 
tend them. This may be illustrated. Suppose that, taking the 
broker description for a model, I say: 

He was a typical Parisian tradesman of the early nineteenth century. 

Now this outline is unlikely to evoke in the mind of the every- 
day reader an image approaching in clarity that aroused by the 
broker description; for comparatively few have any ready-prepared 
concepts regarding Parisian tradesmen, particularly of a past period. 
But if we have read, for example, Balzac’s Cesar Birotteau , the 
description at once evokes a clear image. To us, the typical Pari- 
sian tradesman will be a copy of Cesar Birotteau. If a further 
limitation be added — say that “his figure was spare and his eyes 
piercing” — our pictured tradesman will still be a Cesar Birotteau, 
grown thin and piercing of eye. 

It is evident that in addressing an audience acquainted with 
Balzac’s hero we are safe in employing an outline description; but 
what of Balzac, who built up for us an acquaintance with a man 
with whose type we were not familiar? His feat surely belongs 


82 


Helps For Student-Writers 


to the realm of creation. It would seem — at least to an admirer of 
Balzac — that Cesar could have been no more real to the Parisians 
who were familiar with his like than he is to readers of a later day 
and a different land. 

How does the master thus create characters, so that they are 
independent of previous concepts that may exist in the mind of the 
reader ? 

The secret, of course, defies perfect analysis. But we may be 
sure that such an author knows his story people thoroughly — he 
know's the types from which they arose and possesses a discerning 
eye for essential details in picturing them. We may be sure that 
he does not feel that he is “making up” what they say and do as 
he goes along. Within his mind they are living entities. They can 
no more do or say an uncharacteristic thing than can people of the 
real world. If such a character so much as winks an eye, he does 
it in his own peculiar manner, and if the author sees fit to mention 
the action, he takes pains to make known the manner of its per- 
formance. 

The term “outline” as here employed may require a little defi- 
nition. It implies a limitation — an outer boundary. It may include 
a number of objects, but it excludes many more. The term “bird” 
is definite to a certain degree ; it includes a great many species ; but 
it excludes horses, sunflowers, clouds — an infinity of things. The 
term “chicken” excludes all these and many creatures besides — 
canaries and ostriches, for instance; but it may include roosters, 
pullets and baby chicks of all sorts — to say nothing of its implica- 
tion in the slang of the day! If we employ the word “hen,” the 
boundary is greatly narrowed; if w'e say “white leghorn hen,” we 
exclude a hundred other types ; and if we say “a white leghorn hen 
with one eye,” we have come close to individualizing her. The 
schoolmen used to say that “every angel is his own species”; so 
each individual is the only person of his or her kind in the w'orld ; 
the things which define the individual are those things that no 
other person possesses in the same combination. 

The keynote of vivid characterization, then, is limitation. With 


Creative Characterization 


83 


each evidence of what our subject is not, some of the haze that 
may have lingered about the reader’s concept is cleared up. For ex- 
ample, I may make the following assertion: 

That is a person. 

This statement excludes hundreds of concepts, but the outlines 
of the mental image evoked, although rigidly shutting out natural 
objects, lower animals, and the like, include men* women, and chil- 
dren of all types; civilized, barbarian, savage. We may make the 
outline tremendously more definite by saying: 

That person is a man. 

At once the nebulous concept vaguely takes form — because 
women and children are excluded, though still we do not see the 
subject well enough to determine whether he is savage or cultured, 
whether white, black, or yellow, whether clad in fig leaves, a 1916 
fall model, or a Roman toga, whether he is short, tall, fat, or lean. 
But in a few' words we may bring the outlines into immeasurably 
greater distinctness, thus: 

The man is a tall, well -developed college graduate. 

This eliminates the fig leaf and the toga, the lean, fat, 
black, and yellow men, for if we employ the term college graduate 
without further limitation the reader will understand us to mean 
the typical college graduate. The outline is really quite definite — 
as definite as would be the outline of a real man seen from a mod- 
erate distance. It is only the intimate, close-up details that the 
reader would not now find clear. The features and expression of 
the subject are nebulous, as are also the color of his hair and his 
style of dress, his name, his station in life. This vagueness can be 
cleared by adding a few more limitations : 

That tall, well-developed college graduate with fair hair and a boyish, 
,good-natured face is Alfred Jones, son of the wealthy Joshua Jones. 

For ordinary purposes this would be sufficient limitation to 
begin with. But it has not brought the character fully to life. 
There are many who, except for the minor point of the name, would 
fit the same description. It will remain for his conversation and 
manner, as they are brought out in the story, to make him really 
individual — to picture him as the one person of his kind. 


84 


Helps For Student-Writers 


Every time a fictional character says or does something which 
no other person could or would have done, his outlines become more 
clearly defined. Poor characterization is often a result of failure 
to realize this one point. The writers are prone to let their char- 
acters say the natural, expected thing, in given circumstances. The 
result is that they become too typical. While it is true that great 
fictional characters are almost invariably typical of their class, it 
is also true that the slight variations from type have made them 
great. David Plarum is extremely typical in his broad outlines ; 
but his little individual twists and quirks of character and manner 
are what make him a reality to be remembered. 

When Diogenes told the patronizing Alexander that the only 
favor he desired was that the king should stand out of his sun- 
light, this remark alone served to define the philosopher. He is per- 
haps the one man in history who would have made such a reply. 

For vividness of characterization, then, watch for opportunities 
to present your story people as acting differently from the way that 
any one else would have acted in similar circumstances. It is easy 
to imagine the average wife, when told that her husband has run 
away with another woman, crying : “The wretch — I’ll never forgive 
him !” or words to that effect. It would hardly matter whether her 
married life up to the point of the tragedy had been blissful or the 
opposite. But this situation might readily serve as an opportunity 
for a fiction heroine to step out of the typical class and become a 
distinct individual. Her reply might be: “Very well — ask him if 
he’d prefer to have his trunk sent on, too.” 

It is well, so far as possible, to let one’s characters act other- 
wise than they would be expected to act. This, of course, is advice 
that must be followed with judgment. Unless gifted with intuition, 
a writer who attempts it will run the risk of making his characters 
inconsistent, if not impossible. But unexpectedness gives life and 
spice both to the characterization and to the story as a whole. The 
man who loves where others would be vindictive, the Woman who 
smiles where most would give way to tears, the child who fights 
when he might be expected to run, the wife who forgives where 


Creative Characterization 


85 


others would condemn, the saint who swears, the thief who prays, 
the dog that laughs, the woman who defies convention — all these 
have achieved individuality. Good or evil, they are interesting be- 
cause they have ceased to be purely typical. When w'e call to 
mind Mr. Micawber, Pere Goriot, Madame Bovary, Becky Sharp, 
Topsy, Anna Karenina, Tom Sawyer — we picture not merely typical 
people but individuals, as distinct from others as those we meet 
in daily life. And it may be asserted that they have been brought 
to life by this one device, however unconsciously the author applied 
it — the device of putting them into situations where their character- 
istic traits might become manifest in thought, speech, or action. 

The fiction writer is often advised to study human nature ; but 
a great deal depends on how this study is carried out and syste- 
matized. It helps greatly in our characterization to observe people 
with whom we come in contact, particularly those with marked 
individual characteristics, and to make an effort to differentiate 
between those things they say and do which are typical and those 
which betray their variation from the type. In studying examples 
of fiction, note similar devices. Putting an unexpected remark in 
the mouth of a character is often the author’s deliberate method of 
making that character individual. 




THE LAW OF RHYTHMIC 
DEVELOPMENT 


Rest is not quitting the busy career , 

Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere. 

npHE familiar saying that we learn to swim in winter and to 
skate in summer applies particularly to literary composition. 
Often, after a nonproductive period, enforced or otherwise, the 
work will be resumed with much greater zest and effectiveness. 
New powers of thought and expression seem to have been gener- 
ated in the interval. 

The writer who studies his own development will find that a 
systematic law governs this process. It is no mere coincidence that 
an access of power follow's a period of rest or inactivity. Consider 
how our physical muscles grow. During exercise we wear out our 
strength, rather than increase it. In the morning the athlete may 
be able to lift a hundred-pound weight ; by evening an eighty-pound 
weight will tax his energies. But during the rest period his tired 
muscles recover, and the next morning the same athlete will find 
his strength not only equal to that of the day before but a degree 
augmented. We do not grow while actually exercising; real growth 
takes place during the rest periods. 

So is it with the w'riter. Often a season of effort will seem to 
bear but little fruit. “I began a course of regular writing six 
months ago,” complains the student, “thinking that I might expect 
soon to see evidences of real progress ; but I really believe that some 
of my earlier sketches, aside from minor crudities of expression, 
were stronger as well as more spontaneous than my later ones.” 


88 


Helps For Student-Writers 


No doubt they were — and this may seem an argument against 
persistent, regular practice. But it isn’t. After a complete rest, the 
results of the practice period will become manifest. Relaxation 
alone will not accomplish results, nor will practice alone — it is the 
alternation that counts. The student who consciously applies this 
law will certainly see results. 

The East has taught the Western world much regarding the 
laws of growth, but we have yet a great deal to learn from Oriental 
teachers. The Hindu philosopher sees rhythm in all things. The 
inhalation and exhalation of the breath, the systole and diastole of 
the heart, the alternation of day and night, of the seasons, of sleep- 
ing and waking, the rise and fall of the tides and the waxing and 
waning of the moon — these are to him but familiar physical evi- 
dences of the great law of life. His science of God and the soul is 
based upon it. By the rhythmic alternation of the outbreathing and 
the inbreathing of Brahma, the universe passes into manifestation 
and will return to nonmanifestation; the individual soul develops 
self-consciousness by alternately swinging into incarnation and into 
the realm of spirit, where the experiences of the past life are assimil- 
ated — to bear their fruits when the law of rhythm carries the soul 
back to rebirth. This, at least, is the philosophy of the Eastern 
mystic who clings to the spirit of the ancient wisdom. It is a 
fascinating subject, and the key is rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. 

But Western science contributes its quota of evidence to the 
universality of the law. It tentatively associates matter with vibra- 
tion, and explains the phenomena of electricity, heat, light and 
sound by postulating undulatory waves in the ether. Many evi- 
dences not cited here indicate that rhythm is in truth the law under- 
lying all things, and that one who works with the law will progress 
more rapidly than another who struggles blindly in opposition to it. 

As every pendulum has its own rate of vibration, so, it may be 
said, every writer has his own rhythm. One may easily prove that 
progress is the result of alternating hard work with complete rest ; 
but even better results follow when we know with assurance just 
what length of time to devote to each process. No one rule will 


The Law of Rhythmic Development 


89 


apply to all cases. Experimentation is perhaps the only method of 
determining one’s “wave length,” though intuition — that all-too- 
frequently submerged faculty — is the natural guide. When we begin 
to “grow stale,” as the saying is, when the few ideas that are with 
difficulty conjured up seem hopelessly mediocre and the charm of 
authorship begins to pall — when these symptoms appear, it is usually 
safe to assume that the time has come to put the cover on the type- 
writer and take a rest. If possible, let this rest consist in getting 
close to nature. Sometimes a brisk walk or a quiet stroll will com- 
pletely reverse the psychic currents and restore the lost magnetism ; 
again, several weeks or months of relaxation may be necessary. 

Whatever the time allotted to it, the rest should be complete. 
The swing of the pendulum will allow only a certain amount of 
perfect relaxation ; when its momentum in this direction is spent, it 
will certainly sweep back toward activity ; under its impetus the 
writer will feel an accession of ideas and renewed joy in his work. 
But this resilience follows only when the relaxation has been com- 
plete. As children, we “worked up” by throwing all our energy into 
the forward or backward motion of the swing. So may the writer 
“work up” to unrealized heights by taking full advantage of the 
impetus in either direction. But it will avail little to put our whole 
hearts into the work period if we rebel when the signal for a season 
of rest is given. The surest way of “letting the cat die” is to throw 
our weight against the natural momentum of the swing. If we rebel 
against the backward impulse, the next forward motion will attain 
a lower mark instead of a higher. 

Sometimes circumstances arise that make it necessary to lay 
aside all literary aspirations for a period possibly of years. When 
the opportunity and the urge to write again assert themselves, doubt 
may be entertained as to the possibility of picking up the threads 
after so long an interval. Do not let yourself be cramped by this 
doubt. Though the conscious progress has been nil, your subcon- 
scious self has never lost sight of the old ambition. In taking up 
the work again you will find that a tremendous advance has been 
made in power and facility. This certainly is good theory, and I 


Helps For Student Writers 


90 

have observed it in practice too many times to doubt that it is a 
dependable fact. Of course, when one takes up the work after long 
neglect, there is a natural “stiffness of the joints” to be overcome; 
but the forgotten technique of the craft may be quickly reacquired. 

In planning their work according to the rhythmic law, success- 
ful writers have adopted different systems. Some devote one half 
of the year to writing and the other half to different pursuits. 
Others are content to give the greater part of the year to literary 
endeavor, with an annual vacation of from one to three months; 
and still others reverse this, producing their best work by concen- 
trating it into two or three months of the year. 

Those who make least progress are perhaps writers who work 
sporadically, a day or so at a time and at irregular intervals. Their 
pendulums are nearly at rest — the “cat” has all but “died,” though 
it may be resuscitated. Such a writer, if he wishes to get back 
into the swing of progress, should begin to systematize his work, 
making the most of each impulse to labor, taking full advantage 
of every opportunity for rest, and thus “working up” toward the 
realization of his possibilities. 

Within the greater rhythm is usually a lesser rhythm. Thus, 
the writer who devotes a certain part of his year to literary pro- 
duction divides the season of work into alternate hours of rest and 
labor. One will work eight hours a day, resting and recreating in 
the other sixteen. Another may find that he accomplishes more by 
working three hours a day than he would by working eight. Still 
another may divide the weeks and months into alternate working 
and resting periods. However the hours may be apportioned, it 
is at least advisable that the alternating periods should occur at 
regular intervals. 

In addition to the general rhythm governing the writer’s work 
as a whole, a rhythmic law underlies the production of any composi- 
tion. In an earlier article in this series, on “ ‘Snowballing’ a Plot,” 
this principle was suggested by the illustration of plot development 
through turning the nucleus over and over in the mind until it 
became a full-fledged story outline. The principle is equally applica- 


The Law of Rhythmic Development 


91 


ble to the poem, the essay, the play, or any other imaginable form 
of literature. To force the development of an idea is inadvisable. If 
it involves problems that defy immediate solution, develop it as far 
as the way seems plain, then lay it aside and tomorrow the same 
problems will be surprisingly cleared up — or if not tomorrow, in 
their own good time. The rhythmic law governing literary compo- 
sition is very like that governing the ripening of grain on the stalk 
or the fruit on the tree. Through the alternation of day and night 
and the seasons, all things, manifest or hidden, grow and ripen. 
But a thought that has been picked from the stem too soon — in 
other words, forced into premature development — is something to 
grieve over. 

True, many ideas spring full-blown in the mind of the author 
and are at once ready for expression. Nor are they therefore nec- 
essarily superficial. Doubtless an idea may owe its perfection to 
the fact that for a long time it has been ripening undisturbed in 
the subconsciousness. 

“Full wise is he that can himselven knowe,” said Chaucer. 
Writer, know yourself ! Study to learn your rate of vibration — the 
rhythmic law that governs your development. Succeeding, you will 
be reckoned some day among the wise. No one can do this for 
you so well as you should be able to do it for yourself. When you 
work, work whole-heartedly, with a sure consciousness that the 
effort must bear fruit, even though it may be delayed until after the 
next period of relaxation; and when you rest be equally whole- 
hearted in that, confident that you are making progress no less 
surely than in moments of intense activity. 




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PHOTOPLAYS OR FICTION? 


/CONDITIONS in the literary field at the present time are more 
favorable for the beginning writer than they have been not so 
very long past, and peculiarly enough, this is a result of the photo- 
play vogue. The beginner, in former days, had no prospective field 
other than the magazines ; hence, competition for the bottom rungs 
was very keen. Now, however, most novices turn their attention 
to photoplay writing, because they reason that a good story, even 
though told without literary charm, will get by as a photoplay outline. 

This reasoning is logical. However, it is unfair to encourage 
writers to expect that they can easily break into the photoplay 
markets. The field is a difficult one, and it is becoming more and 
more limited to professionals on the staffs of the various producing 
companies. The writer of some literary ability will do best, in most 
cases, if he concentrates upon trying to please the magazines, rather 
than the scenario directors. 

The best chance in the photoplay field seems to exist for unusual 
comedy ideas. A greater number of serious dramas are produced, 
it is true; but it is also true that they are easier to write. Many a 
staff man can sit down and work out a more or less mediocre 
mystery story or “heart-throb” tale in a few hours; but a new 
humorous idea will not so readily come at the writer’s call. 

Competition in the photoplay field is increasing, rather than 
diminishing, while the opposite is the case, if anything, with story 
writing. 


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NAMING THE CHARACTERS 


UTI OW do you think of names for all your characters?” is a 
question successful authors are often asked. One writer 
answered this without hesitation: “Frankly, I don’t know. When 
I conceive a character to fit a certain part, an appropriate name 
seems to pop into mind with his mental image. It is just as much 
a part of him as his whiskers and manner of speech.” 

This, undoubtedly, is characteristic of the mental processes of 
many experienced writers. However, it is probably a developed 
faculty. It comes from trying, in earlier efforts, to fit the name to 
the character. 

Often it is difficult to decide whether a name should be com- 
monplace or unusual. The familiar names, Smith, or Johnson, or 
Williams, in certain cases, may suggest lack of originality on the 
part of the writer. But in another instance, John Jones may be 
just the right name, denoting a man w r ho is very representative, or 
again, a man who is so unique that he rises above his name. 

A striking or unusual character should generally be suggested 
by a rather unusual name. It is often well to give your villain a 
harsh, repellent name, such as “Squeers,” or “Fagin,” or “Sikes.” 
Strength is denoted by certain rugged names, as “Grant,” “Wain- 
wright,” etc. However, it is true that not all names sug- 
gest the same traits to different people. And no rule can be 
given — except to search until you find the name that seems to you, 
as writer, to fit the character. The chief thing for which many writ- 
ers may be criticised in such connection is that they give too little 
attention to this feature. 


95 


96 


Helps For Student-Writers 


Incidentally, be careful not to give your villain a name that is 
too frequently met with in real life. A story recently came back 
from a prominent editor with the advice that it might be well to 
change the name of an unsavory family described therein, as there 
were at least five hundred sensitive readers of that name in the 
United States. This suggestion is worth heeding, though it might 
perhaps be an unwarranted deduction to suppose that a story would 
leap into instant popularity because the heroine happened to be Miss 
Smith, and the hero John Jones. 


HACKNEYED PLOTS 


\ LMOST any plot or situation can be “put over,” if the author 
possesses sufficient skill; but a number have become so hack- 
neyed through repeated use that for practical purposes they may 
be spoken of as unsalable. An old plot with “modern trimmings,” 
is a dependable commodity in the market — but some are so old that 
it is mighty hard to attach the trimmings. 

Apparently the only sure way for an aspiring author to progress 
beyond all the possible hackneyed stories is to write them and thus 
“get them out of his system.” It seems necessary for every writer 
to try his hand once at each of the following “standbys”: 

The “rube” story. Farmer Hayseed comes to the city and falls 
into the toils of a gang of swindlers, who endeavor to secure his 
“roll.” But in spite of his innocence, Farmer H. is a wise old duck, 
and neatly “skins the skinners.” 

The salted mine story. A tenderfoot buys a mine that has been 
given a fictitious value by an unscrupulous promoter. But the 
tenderfoot turns the tables, either by discovering an actual vein of 
rich ore in the mine or making the promoter believe that he has 
done so and selling it back at an advanced rate. 

The racehorse story — now frequently transposed to an auto- 
mobile, motorcycle, aeroplane, or other setting. A stranger with a 
jaded, apparently ambitionless “nag” comes into a community and 
manages to be drawn into a horse race. He surprises everybody by 
winning the race and departing with all the wagered money in sight. 
It is afterward discovered that the horse was a famous trotter in 
disguise — a ringer. 

97 


/ 


98 


Helps For Student-Writers 


“The Heroism of a Coward.” I must put this in quotation 
marks, because it is the title of one of the first stories I ever sold. 
The acceptance must have been an accident, for the tale of a man 
who has shown what seems to be a yellow streak, but who event- 
ually redeems himself by a supreme act of heroism, has been done 
to death. It is especially popular in these “parlous” times of war. 

The dream story. A character contemplating an unworthy 
course of action falls asleep and dreams that he carries it out to a 
horrifying conclusion. He wakes in the throes of remorse, to find 
that he still has a chance to select the better course. 

The intercepted letter. Stories based on a misunderstanding 
between lovers, owing to the failure of a letter to reach its destina- 
tion (the “villyane” usually sees to this part), have actually been 
known to attain great popularity. This was long the favorite device 
for keeping the lovers in despair and the reader in suspense — but 
the good old days are passing. 

The jealous husband or lover, who sees his wife or sweetheart 
kiss another man and seeks revenge — only to discover that the other 
man is the woman’s brother, or at least some close relative — is an- 
other old favorite. It has all the essentials of suspense and a sur- 
prise ending; but it became obsolete through repetition before most 
present-day literary aspirants saw the light. 

This by no means exhausts the list of plots and situations that 
have served their day, though it may be said to skim the cream. 
The surest way for a young author to fortify himself against them 
is to get his versions down on paper. Like measles, they are seem- 
ingly a necessary annoyance — it is better to have them over with 
while one is young and needs the practice. 

But how are we to know the hackneyed stories when we see 
them — by reading all the fiction that ever has been published ? 

That, of course, would be an impossible task. Nor should the 
writer be under the necessity of reading the prototypes of a story 
to know whether or not it is hackneyed. The test of the matter 
is not, “Have I read any other narratives based on this idea?” but, 
“Is it likely that many others have thought of this ?” 


Hackneyed Plots 


99 


If, for example, we turn to the battlefield, where the test of a 
man is chiefly his courage, what more natural than that the fiction- 
bent mind should hit upon the idea of a soldier who acquires a 
reputation for cowardice, but eventually proves himself the bravest 
of the brave? The intuitive writer would discard this plot because 
it seems likely to have been many times thought of before. 

Let the student who feels that all the possible stories have been 
written take hope. An infinity of stories remain to be written. In 
order to discover them, the writer should be equipped with a type 
of mind similar to that of the pioneer or the inventor. Those who 
take up literature possess this type of mind — it is the force that 
urges them to express themselves through the medium of words. 
That our efforts to produce something new’ are often ineffective is 
no evidence that the inventive, the pioneer faculty is lacking. It 
may mean that we have not yet developed the strength necessary to 
force a way into the uncharted region — and strength will be devel- 
oped by persistence. 







“HE SAID” AND “SHE SAID” 


O NE of the mistakes into which writers are prone to fall is un- 
due straining for variety. This quality, in itself good, may 
easily be sought to excess. The skilful stylist will never seem to 
avoid a natural word for the mere purpose of securing variety, 
even though such word may involve repetition. The repetition is 
likely to be less conspicuous than would be the effort to avoid it. 
Macaulay’s most famous writings conspicuously show his adher- 
ence to this view. 

I have read boasts from writers who claimed that they never 
employed “said” in any combination in recording dialogue. Many 
times I have also read their stories and regretted the wasted effort 
that went into avoiding the offending monosyllable. The substitutes 
were frequently more objectionable than the avoided word itself, 
even if this were repeated to the point of monotony. 

To the desk of an editor frequently come stories containing 
such passages of dialogue as this: 

“I want you to promise me,” he decided. 

“I am sorry,” she disappointed him; “but I can not.” 

“Very well,” he raged. “This ends everything between us.” 

“You are unreasonable,” she asseverated. 

“Not at all,” he differed. 

“But,” she particularized, “I told you beforehand that I could make no such 
promise.” 

“You have been known to change your mind before,” he shrugged. 

This is no exaggeration. Editors frequently pass upon stories 
written in similar style in dead earnest. Sometimes, it is true, they 
accept them — but not often. 

The experienced writer is rarely afraid of “said” and its almost 
equally common variants, “replied,” “answered,” “asked,” “in- 

101 


102 


Helps For Student-Writers 


quired,” and the like. As a rule, these permit of sufficient variety, 
and when its omission does not confuse the sense, the explanatory 
phrase may be dropped altogether. The illustrative passage will 
certainly be improved if rewritten : 


“I want you to promise me," he said decisively. 

“I am sorry,” she replied, ‘‘but I can not.” 

“Very well,” he said angrily, ‘‘This ends everything between us.” 

‘‘You are unreasonable.” 

‘‘Not at all,” he answered shortly. 

‘‘But I told you beforehand that I could make no such promise.” 

‘‘You have been known to change your mind before,” he said with a shrug. 

A moderate amount of repetition of the words “said,” “replied,” 
“asked,” etc., is not likely to be noticed by the reader, because they 
are so familiar. A style that fairly bristles with such words, though 
it may be capable of improvement, will attract less unfavorable 
attention than a style in which there is obvious straining to avoid 
them. 

In glancing down a couple of representative columns of dialogue 
in magazines picked up at random, I find the following series of 
expressions : 


EXAMPLE ONE. 


EXAMPLE TWO. 


— she asked. 

— he said. 

— she answered with a sigh. 
— he said. 

— she said. 

-r-he cried. 

— he said uneasily. 

— he added. 

— she said. 

— said Dick. 

— she said. 

— asked Korwin. 

— repeated Korwin curiously. 
— asked Korwin. 

— said Ruth. 

— Ruth added. 

— said Ruth. 

— said Korwin gravely. 

— said Korwin. 

—said Korwin. 

— she said. 

She said: 

— she said. 

— he added. 


— she inquired in her soft, careful 
little Voice. 

— said the young man briefly. 

— begged Miss Juliet. 

— breathed Miss Juliet. 

— suggested the young man, half 
questioning himself. 

— said Miss Juliet. 

— said Miss Juliet. 

—the young man admitted with the 
merest trace of affected boredom. 

— Miss Juliet told him, breathless. 

— he advised her kindly. 

— said Miss Juliet softly. 

— she answered him eagerly. 

— explained Miss Juliet. 

— said Miss Juliet. 

— Henley agreed cheerfully. 

— she continued, adorably sincere. 

— said Henley with a small grimace 
of distate. 

— she explained flushing. 

— Miss Juliet’s lips said primly. 

— said Henley. 


The first example is from an adventure story in an all-fiction 
magazine; the second is from Fannie Heaslip Lea’s “Miss Juliet,” 
in Collier’s for October 14, 1916. It will be noted that in the latter 
there is a much more pronounced effort to convey to the reader fine 


“He Said” and “ She Said” 


103 


shades of character drawing — to give just the tone and the manner 
of the speaker. But in neither case is there a noticeable tendency to 
avoid the word “said” and its more familiar substitutes. Both 
passages from which the above examples were chosen read naturally 
and smoothly. Imagine the “Miss Juliet” passage as it would read 
if the author had determined that the word “said” should not appear 
in her work — “briefed the young man” — “soft-pedaled Miss Juliet” 
— “primmed Miss Juliet’s lips”! Positively, there are writers who 
would commit such atrocities. 

It should be noted that in these same columns are many frag- 
ments of dialogue in which no explanatory clause occurs, the speech 
itself being of such a nature as to convey to the reader the identity 
of the speaker. Note again that in both cases the writer’s preference 
seems to be for the adverbial modifier of the word indicating speech, 
rather than for a verb that in itself contains the whole meaning. 
The exceptions are seemingly not sought but made necessary by the 
sense. “Said Miss Juliet beggingly” would not convey the right 
thought, hence “begged Miss Juliet” is employed; similarly, the 
variation, “breathed Miss Juliet” is almost necessitated because the 
right shade of meaning could be conveyed in no other way. In 
fact, “Miss Juliet told him, breathless,” is employed further on, 
with entirely different effect. Whenever the sense permits, the 
author employs the simple form : “said the young man briefly,” “she 
answered him eagerly.” Yet there is no monotony of style. Even 
in example one, with its succession of only slightly modified “saids,” 
the reader does not notice the repetition. 

This is not an argument against variety, which is always wel- 
come ; it is merely a caution against overdoing it to such a degree 
that the style becomes strained. 

Another caution in the same category might be directed against 
the overdone effort to avoid repeating the names of characters. 
When a man and a woman are in conversation, it is a simple matter 
to alternate “he said” with “Dick said” and “she said” with “Ruth 
said,” thus securing some variety; but when two men are talking 
together “he said” will rarely do, because it does not ordinarily 


104 


Helps For Student-Writers 


indicate which “he” is meant. The writer is thus forced to employ 
all sorts of expedients if he wishes to avoid repeating the name of 
the character. The result is often such a passage as this : 

Walter Dale and Homer Jones were talking over “boyhood days.” Do you 
remember the old swimming hole?” inquired the former. 

“I should say I do,” responded his companion. 

The first speaker puffed at his cigar reminiscently. “Many a ducking I’ve 
had in it,” he commented. 

“Yes,” said the other, “and I’m afraid I helped to give you some of them.” 

The man who had acknowledged receiving the duckings looked up with a 
laugh. “Oh, the score is even,” he observed, and the ducker was silenced. 

Very ingenious in its avoidance of repetition, but also very 
awkward and amateurish. The names of the characters may be 
repeated several times without monotony, and the passage will read 
much more briskly with the awkward subterfuges eliminated. Thus : 

Walter Dale and Homer Jones were talking over boyhood days. “Do you 
remember the old swimming hole?” inquired Dale. 

“I should say I do,” responded Jones. 

Dale puffed at his cigar reminiscently. “Many a ducking I’ve had in it,” 
he commented. 

“Yes,” said Jones, “and I’m afraid I helped to give you some of them. 

Dale looked up with a laugh. “Oh, I guess the score was about even 
between us,” he observed, and Jones was silenced. 

“The other,” “the former,” and “the latter,” should be banished 
from the writer’s vocabulary. They are awkward as usually em- 
ployed, because so obviously used to avoid the repetition of a charac- 
ter’s name. The best plan is to write the first draft of a story with- 
out making the least effort to avoid repetitions of names or of 
“saids.” In polishing the story, prune away those that obtrude too 
much — but as a rule it will be found that very few need be accorded 
such attention. 


THE BOILER AND THE 
WHISTLE 


L? ICTION involving emotion is something for the writer of av- 
-L erage capabilities to avoid. Most of us fall into the way of 
sickly sentimentalism, or of melodrama, when trying to depict emo- 
tional scenes. 

The only secret that can be imparted for the effective handling 
of emotion is repression. Emotion is a force, and like other forces 
it is powerful only when concentrated. Steam possesses tremendous 
power, but only when produced under pressure. Compressed air 
will move tone ; but in its untrammeled state it is hardly thought of 
as a force. To take advantage of the vast potential power of a river 
we dam it, or confine it for its powerful use in hydraulics. Elec- 
tricity, too, must be forced through a resisting medium in order to 
produce heat, light or power. A gunpowder explosion may hurl 
projectiles at inconceivable speed, but only when the explosive is 
confined in a small chamber. 

Likewise emotion may be either aimlessly dissipated or confined 
and repressed until it becomes a driving, awe-inspiring, even danger- 
ous power. One man will vent his anger in harmless sputtering, 
ranting, and frothing at the mouth ; but beyond making a nuisance 
of himself he accomplishes little. Another man, equally provoked, 
will say nothing, do nothing, will scarcely change counte- 
nance, except, perhaps, for a dangerous glint in his eyes. This man 
is to be feared. His anger, being repressed, is a power that, when 
finally released, may kill. 


106 


Helps For Student-Writers 


Deep feeling can not be expressed, for as soon as emotion finds 
expression it loses its depth. People who cry easily, who gush over 
their friends, become wildly excited in emergencies, spout vindictive- 
ness when they are irritated, dance and shout when they are 
pleased — such people probably do not feel very deeply. They are 
like engines that blow off so much steam through the safety valve 
that they never develop much power. They recall Abraham Lin- 
coln’s story of the little river steamboat which had a whistle so large 
in proportion to its boiler that every time it was blown the engine 
stopped. 

The grief that can find no relief in tears, the love that is too 
reverent to express itself in caresses, the joy or anger that renders 
one speechless — these are the emotions that drive. 

All this has its lesson for the fiction writer. 

The tendency of the novice in handling an emotional passage 
is to “lay it on too thick.” If his hero meets with a bereavement, 
he is pictured as moaning, tearing his hair and giving way to 
wild lamentations limited only by the extent of the author’s imagi- 
nation and vocabulary. If the same hero loves, he goes into sickly 
sentimental rhapsodies over the object of his devotion; the author 
fears lest the reader may not appreciate the intensity of his 
passion and so makes him maudlin. If the character is moved to 
pity, nothing less than crocodile tears will serve to express his 
feeling. 

After reading such a passage, the author sometimes feels 
vaguely that the emotion is not altogether impressive. In an 
effort to make it so, he goes back over it and substitutes stronger 
adjectives, adds a few more heartbreaking sobs to the hero’s grief, 
a few more sighs to his love scene, a few more quavers to his 
ejaculations of pity, and then he wonders why the editors fail to 
recognize a masterpiece. 

The American ideal is sturdiness. Our people are far enough 
advanced in real culture to recognize that feeling is nowise to be 
measured by its outward expression. The grief that we most respect 
is silent grief, the love that impresses us is that winch is felt rather 


The Boiler and the Whistle 


107 


than talked about, the pity that convinces us of its sincerity is with- 
out ostentation. In a word, whether in real life or in fiction, the 
character whose manner under strong emotion is most repressed 
convinces us most of the real depth of his feeling. 

Realizing this, the intuitive writer may permit his weak charac- 
ters to rant and sentimentalize; but his strong characters will be 
self-contained. The child cries when hurt or grieved; the man 
tightens his lips. The untutored maid loudly bewails when calamity 
befalls her ; in like misfortune the cultured woman whom she 
serves finds little expression beyond silent weeping. The weakling 
grovels and begs for mercy when his enemies get the better of him ; 
the strong man shrugs his shoulders and meets torture and death 
with no outward tremor. Does this mean that the more developed 
type of humanity is less capable of feeling? Hardly. It would be 
as logical to say that a mighty turbine engine is less forceful than 
a teakettle, because it fails to spout steam under the same pressure. 

Of course, the above illustrations will not always hold true. 
The maid may bear her grief silently, while the mistress gives way 
to lamentation ; this only proves that in such instance the maid is 
the stronger of the two. There are self-contained children and 
sniveling men. Which, obviously, does not in the least affect the 
force of the argument. 

Since deep emotion can not be expressed without being cheap- 
ened, the writer frequently finds it a difficult phase of life to depict. 
The law of suggestion is here very potent. Make the reader feel 
that the character is exercising repression, then the repressed emo- 
tion will also be felt. Suppose we illustrate this by parallel passages. 


EXAMPLE ONE. 

The scene is a typical business of- 
fice; the president of the concern, a 
strong-featured man of affairs, is 
standing by his desk dictating to his 
stenographer. “I want to get every- 
thing out of the way,” he observes, ‘‘so 
that I can go to the station to meet 
my wife.” His eyes rest for a mo- 
ment on a framed photograph that 
stands on his desk, then he turns his 
back on it and resumes his dictation. 
While he is in the midst of a letter, 
the office boy brings him a telegram. 


EXAMPLE TWO. 

The same scene — a typical business 
office; the president is dictating to 
his stenographer. ‘‘I want to get my 
desk clear,” he explains, ‘‘so that I 
can go to the station to meet my 
wife. Ah, how I have missed her — 
how I long to see her sweet face 
again!” He goes on with his dicta- 
tion. While he is in the midst of a 
letter, the office boy brings him a 
telegram. He seizes it feverishly, and 
tears it open. A look of bewilderment 
comes into his eyes, followed by one 


108 


Helps For Student-Writers 


He tears it open and pauses in his 
dictation to read it. For a moment he 
stares at the sheet of paper, then: 
“Where were we?” — turning to the 
stenographer. “Yes, I remember. (Dic- 
tates.) “If our claims appeal to you, 
we stand ready to send a represent- 
ative who will quote prices.” Then, 
in a strained tone of voice: “That is 
all for today — you may go.” Again 
he reads the telegram, then allows it 
to flutter from his fingers. In a daze, 
he walks slowly toward the door — 
pauses where his hat and coat hang 
on the rack, mechanically takes them 
down, and passes out. looking straight 
ahead. The stenographer picks up the 
telegram, reads it, then gazes after 
him with an expression of pity. The 
telegram announces that his wife is 
dead, the victim of a train wreck. 


Which do you feel most sorry for? The man who bore his 
grief s'ilently, or the one who gave vent to it in frenzied language? 
Ten to one the husband in the second example will be married again 
within a year! 

If rightly pictured, such a scene as the first does not indicate 
callousness. The fact that the man did not give way to outward 
expression of grief shows two things — first, that he is strong, and 
second that the shock and grief are too terrible for expression. 
Why does he finish dictating his letter after receiving the telegram ? 
Because it furnishes a sort of shock absorber. Often, when one 
receives sudden news, whether very good or very bad, or perhaps 
when one has a sudden sharp twinge of pain, he mechanically attends 
to some duty near at hand before daring to realize his sensation to the 
full. I recall witnessing, last summer, an exhibition of the national 
game in which a batted ball struck the pitcher in the groin. He 
picked up the ball, accurately threw the runner out at first, then 
collapsed. Had there been no immediate duty to take his mind from 
the pain, he probably would have collapsed instantly. Photoplay- 
wrights, who are wholly dependent on action to produce results, 
might well take note of this illustration. 

Sometimes repression may take the form of a light or whimsi- 
cal statement of a serious matter. Which of these two statements 
is the more impressive? 


of wild despair. “My God!” he ex- 
claims, dropping the telegram and 
raising both hands to his head. “She 
is dead! Dead! It can’t be true— there 
is some mistake!” Again he searches 
for the telegram, finds it and reads. 
“No— there is no mistake. My little 
.one — my adored one — killed in a train 
wreck — how can I bear it!” To the 
stenographer: “Leave me — leave me 
to my grief! No — I must go to her. 
My coat— my hat!” And so he rushes 
forth. 


The Boiler and the Whistle 


109 


EXAMPLE ONE. 

I looked up to find myself staring 
into the horrible black depths of a re- 
volver barrel. The man who held it 
was evidently bent upon having my 
life. His ferocious glance was turned 
loweringly upon me. My blood ran 
cold at the realization of my predica- 
ment. 


EXAMPLE TWO. 

I looked up and found myself facing 
the business end of a revolver. The 
discovery was not exactly pleasant. I 
should have liked to request the man 
who held it to point the gun some 
other way, for fear it might accident- 
ally go off. But a glance at his un- 
sympathetic countenance convinced 
me that he was a grouchy individual 
who would probably resent the sug- 
gestion. 


Most people will certainly find the second example more con- 
vincing, in spite of the fact that it is — or rather because it is — an 
understatement of the situation. 


Repression may take the form of altogether omitting an im- 
passioned scene. Unless you are a master hand at making love 
scenes interesting, you will contrive to skip them. Let Alonzo 
find his adored one waiting for him in the summerhouse under the 
starlight, perhaps give his first word of greeting; then skip to the 
time when they emerge from the summerhouse and stroll up the 
path, walking apart — oh, very far apart — under the curious eyes of 
the family and the neighbors. Repression again: the farther apart 
they walk on the path, the nearer together they have been in the 
summerhouse. And the reader’s imagination has undoubtedly pic- 
tured a more idyllic bit of love-making than any writer short of 
Robert W. Chambers could (or would) describe in detail. 

The final syllable of repression phonetically suggests the word 
“shun.” The more details you shun in picturing an emotional scene, 
the more the reader will supply, provided you carefully furnish the 
right suggestions. 

In picturing emotion, the simple, unaffected statements are of 
most account. But occasionally, it is true, a tremendous effect may 
be produced by letting a self-contained character “cut loose” in the 
story. When a man who seldom loses his poise explodes in wrath 
or displays some other pronounced emotion, we know that the 
provocation must be extreme. Such an event is worth saving for 
the climax of your production. 







THE PURPOSE OF 
FICTION 


A CORRESPONDENT recently propounded the query: “Do 
you consider the ultimate question in fiction one of method?” 
That is a big subject, and the answer can not be given offhand. I 
replied that I considered the ultimate question in fiction to be the 
providing of vicarious experience for readers. Viewed in this light, 
the question of matter or method sinks into insignificance. As well 
ask a famished man whether he wishes to drink because he realizes 
that water contains elements needed to support life, or because it 
affects his palate pleasantly. He will reply: “Because I’m dying 
of thirst!” 

The fundamental purpose behind every phenomenon is the 
answering of a need. It is not alone in physics that nature abhors 
a vacuum. To ascertain the purpose of any institution or thing, 
discover the need that it supplies. If a need arises., a new thing is 
created. If the need vanishes, the thing atrophies and becomes 
extinct. To the naturalist, this is a self-evident fact. In reading 
one of the books of Colorado’s nature-philosopher, Enos Mills, I 
was impressed by a comment on the lodgepole pine, which, instead 
of dropping its cones, retains them, imbedded sometimes deep in 
the trunk, until a fire sweeps over the region. The fire melts the 
wax of the cones, releasing the seeds, and thus insuring that the 
forest will be replanted. Think of a law so elemental, yet so com- 
plex, that in response to a need caused by the depredations of 
lightning, ages ago, a tree was developed which depended upon 
forest fires for its perpetuation! 

111 


112 


Helps For Student-Writers 


All are familiar with the simpler illustrations of this law. The 
flower of a plant fills a need — to attract the insects that carry pollen 
from bloom to bloom and thus fertilize the plant. The leaves of a 
tree, the shell of a crab, the gills of a fish, the wings of a bird, the 
brain and nervous system of a man, are specialized developments 
that came in response to needs for nourishment, protection, and 
preservation of the species. The need came first and the faculty 
second. Had it not been for the needs that rose in the exigencies of 
our existence, we should still be amoebas. Evidently the more 
needy a man is, the better his chance of becoming something other 
than a nucleated mass of protoplasm. This should be good news 
to writers! 

Many things, it is true, seem to us the very reverse of needs. 
It is only by analogy that we begin to realize* for instance, that 
such things as sickness, conflagrations, and wars are with us for 
our own good — each to fill a need. What the need is we may only 
speculate — probably it is to teach mankind how to avoid the errors 
that cause them. 

Back of all this again is the question of why we need needs. 
The only answer is — for the sake of progress. Viewed in this 
light, it is better that mankind should be visited by calamities. 
Under utopian conditions we should stand still. Evolution is a 
constant reaching forward to catch up with our needs. 

But we never shall catch up, for the primary need of the 
human race is experience. Out of experience we build toward 
perfection. By touching a heated radiator, the child learns through 
pain to keep away from hot objects. It is necessary for the sav- 
age to learn the elementary lessons that come from fighting, from 
being tortured, from slaying and being slain. As he progresses, 
it becomes necessary for him to learn by bitter experience to 
avoid unsanitary conditions, brutal practices, covetousness, selfish- 
ness, and other errors. Some of these lessons are still but half 
learned by people who call themselves civilized. 

Though the gaining of experience is likely to be painful, it is 
sought after with almost violent eagerness. The desire of man- 


The Purpose of Fiction 


113 


kind for experience — or sensation, as it may be called — is like 
the parching thirst of the famished man. The great problem is 
to get enough of it to dull the craving. The savage did not fight 
merely because he was forced to ; he fought because he gloried 
in it — because he thirsted for the exquisite sensation of carving 
and being carved. Nor is the savage spirit — the craving for ele- 
mental sensation — weeded out of us in this day. In many ways 
we deliberately seek pain because it provides extreme sensation. 
Boxing is an evident outgrowth of the desire to give and take 
punishment. Football, bronco “busting,” riding the “roller-coaster,” 
taking cold baths, eating or drinking highly seasoned viands — all 
these are enjoyed because they satisfy the thirst for sensation. 

But along with the savage in man has been a development of 
subtle senses whose cravings for sensation are not to be satisfied 
by coarse physical pain. Battling with a club will not satisfy the 
newly awakened esthetic sense. Therefore, man seeks the art gal- 
lery, the concert hall, the great scenic outdoors, for experiences 
that will come within the scope of his new senses. And with 
this greater sensitiveness has come a demand for variety. The 
shopkeeper, for instance, lives a comparatively monotonous life, 
which nowhere near satisfies his thirst for — say experiences of the 
savage order. The factory girl has no way of satisfying her long- 
ings for esthetic sensation. 

What is the result? Denied personal experiences in accord 
with their desires, they seek vicarious satisfaction. The shop- 
keeper, to appease his appetite for crude physical pain and action, 
becomes a patron of the prize ring. Lacking the physical consti- 
tution or the opportunity to stand up to an antagonist, he drinks 
in the experience by watching professionals crouch in a smoke- 
filled arena and hammer each other to a knockout. 

The esthetic factory girl, on the other hand, goes home and 
reads Marie Corelli or Robert W. Chambers (perhaps we do her 
an injustice), and thus takes the edge off of her craving by living 
for a time in a realm above the sordid whir of machinery, the ugly 
tenement, and the unwashed dishes waiting in the sink. 


114 


Helps For Student-Writers 


As these two satisfy their thirst, so practically does all civ- 
ilization satisfy its experience desires. Theater, baseball arena, 
football field, magazine and novel — all are direct outgrowths of 
the craving and the real need of humanity for more experience 
than the daily routine can supply. It is possible for a man in one 
day now to live a more varied life and acquire more experience 
than the primitive man could know in a lifetime. He may rise in 
the morning and write a thousand words of a novel in which — by 
the aid of his creative imagination — he ventures into the frozen 
North and fights a despairing battle with the elements. After 
breakfast, he may live for a few hours the life of a not too busy 
twentieth-century business man, closing his desk at eleven o’clock 
to listen to a lecture which takes him through the peaceful moor- 
lands of the mountain-tops, over rocky passes, down stupendous 
gorges, and to the brink of glaciers and volcanoes. At a commer- 
cial-club luncheon following, he is taken by the speaker of the oc- 
casion to war-infested Europe and shown the pitiful state of a de- 
vastated country. In the afternoon he attends a “movie,” where 
he lives through a turmoil of hazards with the fearless Helen, and 
chuc kles through an impossible episode with Charlie Chaplin. Af- 
ter supper, he attends the theater to lose himself in a tense melo- 
drama of the Kentucky mountains, and on returning home puts 
himself to sleep by reading the latest issue of Zippy Stories. May 
his dreams be undisturbed! 

All of these are real experiences — not as intense, of course, as 
if lived in actual fact, but intense enough to build themselves into 
his brain. The narrative is the most convenient device for sup- 
plying the need of complex humanity for more experience than 
the daily routine will supply; hence the origin of the story-teller’s 
art. Hence also the statement that the purpose of fiction is to pro- 
vide vicarious experience for readers. 

In putting this principle into practice, the essential thing for 
the writer is to know his audience. The readers of a certain type 
of magazine yearn for adventure, fighting, and violent physical 
action. This means that if such readers were to choose the life 


The Purpose of Fiction 


115 


they would live, they would choose such a life as this magazine 
commonly pictures. They would choose to be such persons as are 
the heroes of these tales — virile, fearless, and masterful. Any 
other type of central character would spoil the story for readers 
of this magazine, because they have no desire to think of themselves 
as playing other parts. 

An attraction toward the opposite sex is shared by all; hence, 
love stories, in which we can assume the identity of a man or 
woman involved in a romance, are always in demand. The maid 
whose life is starved and sordid hungers to experience the sen- 
sations of a queen or a society belle, and so devours the novel feat- 
uring a lovely and wealthy heroine sought by a multitude of cor- 
rectly tailored wooers. To the average reader two kinds of fiction 
have their appeal. One kind goes beyond his experience and gives 
him a totally new set of sensations. The other appeals to him be- 
cause it calls up cherished experiences that he has had and helps 
him to live them over — is intensified by his real knowledge of the 
setting and conditions. 

For the writer it is well to realize the need of presenting in 
every story at least one chief character with whom, in imagination, 
the reader can link himself. To enjoy the experiences of a story 
hero, we must live his life, and it is far pleasanter to imagine our- 
selves brave, resourceful, generous, and altogether admirable than 
to put ourselves into the position of a contemptible character. 
Many a story has been rejected because the hero — though perhaps 
true to life — was a little below the standard of heroism, honesty, or 
strength. 

For every sort of experience there is perhaps an audience. 
One audience yearns for red-blooded adventure, another desires 
only experiences of an esthetic order, another cares more for 
romantic thrills, while still another revels in the unpleasant and 
sordid. The story that pleases only one of these audiences has a 
limited appeal. The “popular” writer is one whose work has an 
appeal to more than one audience. As a matter of fact, the com- 
posite reader represented by the , public is an intricate blend of 


116 


Helps For Student-Writers 


desires. He is neither wholly esthetic in his tastes nor wholly 
savage. The story of red-blooded action only partly satisfies him; 
nor is he wholly satisfied with the story of purely esthetic appeal. 
The author who can satisfy him must be able to run the whole 
gamut of his desires — or the effect is thin. For this reader, a 
story must have a theme of broad significance, a melody of romance, 
an accompaniment of adventure, an obbligato of humor, many 
arpeggios of suspense, subnotes of tragedy, variations of atmos- 
phere — at least this much to give the story a full, rich orchestration. 

The average writer can not reach the general audience to 
which, for example, The Saturday Evening Post appeals, because 
he has not the range needed to touch responsive chords in the 
average composite reader. If I should hear the band play a new 
and catchy piece of music, I could perhaps go to the piano and pick 
out the melody from memory — that being all that I heard with 
sufficient clarity to distinguish it. But a musician would hear so 
much more, and with even greater distinctness, that he could repro- 
duce the piece with all its richness of harmony. Fully as much 
difference exists between the writer who can write a perfectly good 
story, adapted to readers of a definitely limited type, and one who 
can write a story that satisfies the many-sided reader. The reason 
why there are comparately few leading names in fiction, in spite of 
the great number of good writers, is that few men or women have 
the “ear” or the ability to feel the whole gamut of individual or 
racial desires. When I read a story that seems to me the offspring 
of such a “range,” no matter how crude in technique it may be, I 
begin to look for a future “name” in fiction. And I have picked 
some “winners” by recognizing this evidence of potential mastery. 

Most writers are more limited in range than they realize. This 
is natural — we all have difficulty in recognizing that there are 
things of importance outside of those that interest us. The writer 
who lacks philosophy can not understand why his stories are 
accepted only by magazines catering to the superficial. The writer 
who does not care for romance fails to understand why the editors 
term his deeply philosophical narratives uninteresting. The writer 


The Purpose of Fiction 


117 


whose interests are confined to domestic and feminine problems 
wonders why she can not extend her field beyond the household 
magazines. 

The range necessary to reach a broader audience can be culti- 
vated. The simplest way of doing this is to find out the class of 
people to whom your stories do not appeal, and begin to aim 
directly at them. Study their interests, understand them, at least, 
even if you can not wholly sympathize with them. If you have 
thus far been limited to the purely adventure type of story, forget 
for a time the man readers who form the bulk of your audience, 
and consider the debutante, to whom it is probable that your type 
of story has now no appeal whatever. Work out the problem of 
gaining her interest. Think of her as your audience, and after 
analyzing her desires and motives, when you have this audience 
definitely fixed in mind, go over some of your purely adventure 
stories and play up features that will appeal to her. Then, if 
you can think of some auditor who is not interested in anything 
that the revised story represents — neither adventure nor romance — 
try to play up some phases that will broaden its field in that direc- 
tion. Say, for instance, that you adapt it to the professor of 
philosophy in a college, or the minister of your church. If you 
succeed in these particulars, you will find that the story is richer in 
appeal than your average. Though you will still be sticking to the 
adventure story, your forte, it will not be a mere adventure story. 
It will have the elements of a fascinating romance, a deeper signifi- 
cance, and an uplift tone — hence, a wider audience, a broader 
appeal. 

On the other hand, if you have been limited thus far to stories 
for the women’s magazines, extend your field by studying men’s 
activities and interests. Adapt this advice to yourself. 

But don’t become too ambitious to stray into other pastures 
until you have definitely nipped the grass of one. Concentrate 
particularly on those qualities and features that preponderate in 
the magazines you would like to enter. 

After all is said, nothing in fiction seems to matter except our 


118 


Helps For Student-Writers 


success in laying before readers incidents that they can live through 
with real profit and with the result of definitely enlarging their 
experience bumps. 


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